


A Sensational Wind Worth Stirring

by freshlybakedspiderbread



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: F/F, Gen, I have decided not to worry so much about using the most accurate relationship tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23478415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freshlybakedspiderbread/pseuds/freshlybakedspiderbread
Summary: When an odd pair of dancers arrive to make a scene, Aya Shameimaru expected a commotion among her people that would incite them to action. Instead, the higher-ups would rather everyone sit around in undeserved confidence. A disappointed Aya is then encouraged to create a story that might stir up the attention of even the highest ranks of tengu, even if it only brings more trouble.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

The subject of the scene was Reimu Hakurei, the shrine maiden who kept the balance of the land. She was in her familiar red-and-white garbs, and sporting an all-too-familiar glare. She flew through the air with focused, yet graceful movements, as she chased down her target and summoned forth a plethora of colourful lights that were intended to track down and annihilate her foes. 

The image captured at that moment perfectly portrayed a majestic yet terrifying sight, no doubt inspiring fear and awe in any who would incur her wrath. It even inspired admiration, and more importantly, ideas for headlines in the photographer who dared to get close enough for said image.

Being so close to such danger however, was how one brings out the most impressive imagery to go along with potential headlines. There was plenty worth highlighting, like the ferocity of the shrine maiden, or the intricacy of the light patterns filling the surroundings. The best thing to do in this situation, as decided by the photographer, was to simply take as many photos as possible and sort which would be the best later.

“I’m going to break that camera in two if you don’t get out of my face!” Reimu hollered, throwing her youkai-punishing needles with all her force, which ended up missing by a large margin as her would-be-target sped through the air around her, continuing to take as many unsolicited photographs as she wanted.

“But that belligerent energy you’re showing off is what I like the most! Keep it up, keep it up!” A polite, chirpy voice replied to the shrine maiden’s displeasure, followed by the click of a camera shutter. Despite the swaths of needles and amulets coming fast from all sides, she narrowly dodged all of it and even looked like she was having fun all the while.

Even with as fast as her target was moving, Reimu kept track of the blurring silhouette. She could never mistake details like the geta that just barely slipped out of the corner of her vision, or the tokin headgear that somehow never fell off that head of dark hair. All the signature trademarks of a crow tengu, alongside the confident smile that Reimu wanted to wipe off.

This was far from the first time that Aya Shameimaru took such a pushy approach to gathering material for her Bunbunmaru Newspaper. Whenever Reimu ended up being featured in Aya’s articles, the chances of having strange and unappealing things written about her were extremely high. As such, whenever Aya pointed a camera her way, Reimu’s first instinct was to put a stop to it.

...Which was easier said than done. Aya was exceptionally good at playing keep-away and staying the perfect distance to both stay safe and also capture the shots she wanted. That didn’t stop Reimu from trying to shoot down the reporter with all her might.

“I’ll show you belligerent...” Reimu grumbled as she chased after Aya, not yet having decided whether she wanted to wring the reporter’s neck or to stomp on her. “I’m not even doing anything worth putting in your third-rate youkai paper!”

“You are too modest!” Aya chatted back as she flew away from Reimu. “A model reporter like me excels at finding newsworthy truths from the most unassuming of sources. One just needs to look closely enough!”

“How about you look closely at this!” Reimu announced before summoning her special weapon made just for this occasion: Her giant, anti-reporter talisman. The talisman was larger than Reimu herself, and she sent it flying straight towards Aya.

“Aw, you still have this prepared just for me?” Aya felt flattered upon seeing the giant, hazardous missile closing in on her faster than she was backing up through the air. “But you should know this won’t stop me from getting my scoop!”

Aya suddenly slowed down, which confused Reimu since it appeared to make the talisman’s collision with her inevitable. In a fraction of a second, however, she pivoted herself in the air and swerved around the talisman as it just barely grazed her. She swerved around the air so severely that she ended up behind Reimu, who only turned around a second later to be met with several more camera flashes.

Aya lowered her camera after that, looking very satisfied with herself. “That was an excellent display all-around! I should have more than enough for my ‘Menacing Shrine Maiden’ headline this month. Thank you for your time!”

“Don’t you dare-” 

Before Reimu could do anything else, Aya immediately turned around and flew off at full speed, leaving Reimu by herself within a second, much to the shrine maiden’s chagrin. She could only yell at the air left behind by the reporter. 

“Argh! ...At least write ‘impressive’ instead of ‘menacing’!”

“I will consider it!” Aya’s voice echoed back, her silhouette already long out of sight.

* * *

High up among the steep cliff sides of the great Youkai Mountain, there were many twisting paths both deep within it’s forests, or along the rocky surfaces. One area of the mountain in particular was considered the secluded and impenetrable territory of the tengu. No humans or even other youkai would callously approach the tengu’s grounds, and if they did, they would be driven off by the wolf tengu in charge of protecting their borders. 

Deeper within the tengu’s territory was their own self-made expanse and community, a village of their own, right in the heart of the mountain. It might have appeared like any other urban landscape, except it was entirely populated by tengu.

One such tengu was of course, Aya Shameimaru, who was gathering some things in her home. She sat up from her desk, which had various old drafts and references organised in chronological piles for her convenience. Her camera and boxes of film sat in the corner next to the papers, and hanging on the wall in front of her was where she let her hauchiwa fan sit, since it added a nice bit of colour to the wall when she wasn’t using it.

Her house was fairly compact, which was to her preference, with every room connected to one larger one in the middle. From her desk, she only needed to take a few steps to access her kitchen, which was ideal since it was convenient for keeping herself sustained while working late nights.

As she stepped away from the desk, she took a quick look over the pinboard on the other wall. Multiple photos and notes were pinned and arranged by their potential worth as headline material in an order that only Aya herself understood. The pinboard was good for putting down stray thoughts that may prove useful at later dates, not to mention that it was also just nice to look at the progress that lead to finished articles, much like the ones currently in her hands.

When Aya left her house, she was holding a few papers and photos collected in a bundle, which made up articles she had prepared over the past week, now written and ready for print. Among them, she had picked out the best photos among her recent collection to highlight ‘the shrine maiden’s impressive stature’.

During this bright afternoon, the roads were as bustling as ever with its citizens moving to and fro. The air filled with the sounds of chattering tengu, half of them with their geta clip-clopping along the ground, and the rest soaring through the sky above since the clear and sunny weather made it comfortable to do so. Most of the pavements and roads started low and then progressed higher along the mountainside as the paths ventured deeper into the more developed districts.

Aya joined the bustling crowd, making her way out of the residential districts. Most of the buildings around this area were houses, some built into the rock of the mountain, others situated along the river that flowed through the center of the landscape, and a few built to sit high among particularly tall trees.

Getting one’s story printed was a regular routine that just about every crow tengu knew by heart, since crow tengu as a whole were assigned the role of informants and journalists, in charge of collecting and reporting on any and all worthwhile information. Aya in particular wrote more about matters regarding events and people outside Youkai Mountain, especially when it came to humans, more often and with more authority than anyone else. She took pride in covering the latest scoop for her readers, which included not just her fellow tengu but everyone in Gensokyo who she could hand her papers off to.

Aya took a relaxed pace on her way to her destination. Along the way, she passed by a modest cafe along the street, one of many along this road. Those kinds of places were always filled with tengu taking a break from their work at any given time. The most common kind Aya would find were the white wolf tengu, since they rotated different shifts to guard their mountain territory. In this hierarchy of theirs, it was decided that wolf tengu made for the ideal defense force, and Aya always took time to greet whoever was guarding the entrance when she returned from collecting material.

Tempted as she was to stop by for a snack, Aya pressed on to the bigger business districts. Most of the buildings here were for offices where many different kinds of work is done, such as the hanataka tengu and their business management. The hanataka tengu were likely to spend all day within their offices charting out plans, allocating funds, or other related duties. The hanataka didn’t often step out of their districts very often, since they have all the resources and ability to do their work from indoors, which reminded Aya of a crow tengu she knew. Despite the fact that they didn’t have much public presence, they were the authority on business-related matters, so if the hanataka decided for whatever reason that film and ink costs were to suddenly be increased by thirty percent, then everyone else just had to deal with that. Though some other tengu might be jealous of the way the hanataka get to do things, Aya thought such a role would be far too boring for her tastes.

By now, Aya had reached the printing building, run by the yamabushi tengu. The yamabushi actually ran a number of factories and manufacturing facilities, which included their large collection of printing presses. Every yamabushi decided their own pace when it came to work, and so if they wanted to take it easy and make a crow tengu wait an extra day or three for their papers to get printed, that was their prerogative. That didn’t stop Aya from being insistent if need be, which was very often.

Most reporters opted to simply mail their finished drafts to the yamabushi tengu, but Aya prefered coming down to the printing building in person, so she could make sure the photos and text were arranged by the yamabushi exactly how she envisioned, with the photographs being highlighted and framed perfectly for maximum attention-grabbing.

After spending an hour inside politely pestering the workers inside, Aya came out of the building, satisfied that her articles for the month were now in production. She still had a full day ahead of her, so she figured she might head home and get a headstart on editing the material for her special, human-village-edition of the Bunbunmaru. It was busy work, appealing to so many different audiences, but a traditional reporter like herself wouldn’t have it any other way.

As Aya headed down the stone steps built into the hill, she glanced to the scenery off in the distance. The yamabushi’s printing building was fairly high up, so from her current position, she had a good view of the entire rest of the tengu’s domain. She could see the various facilities and shops she liked to frequent, and also the line of residential homes a little further behind, including her own house which was perched at the far end of the river’s path.

Rested higher along the mountain than any of these though, and built larger and more grand than any other structures, were the administrative buildings that were usually only ever occupied by the daitengu and Lord Tenma, the head of all tengu. The daitengu, who answered directly to Tenma, were the managers of their society, and said to represent the greatest of the tengu’s power and wisdom. All other tengu then deferred to the daitengu, and that was how it has been for as long as the hierarchy of their society has existed. The rules as they currently were meant that every tengu lived by the role assigned to them, a role which is decided at birth.

To almost all tengu, including even the daitengu, this hierarchy was simply a fact of life and it was how tengu have always operated. Aya was one of the few who still remembered a time before all of that, many centuries ago, when everyone’s life was a bit more flexible than the rigid roles they are assigned today. 

Even some of the daitengu might have forgotten, but she remembered when every tengu was working together as equals to form something special on their own. What the daitengu, alongside their Tenma, eventually created was the society they had today, and it was certainly worthy of the admiration and reverence that they now received. Likewise, Aya treated those at the top with the proper respect she believed they deserved as well, regardless of the fact that she remembered being there when most of them were infants. ...and regardless of how the hierarchy they had created meant a crow tengu like Aya would always be stuck to only being an informant for them, and never anything more.

...Not that she didn’t enjoy her current job. Her Bunbunmaru was an important asset to everybody, both to the tengu’s network of information, and to all her readers, including the ones who tried to deny receiving her paper. She would continue taking great pride in delivering stories in her own special way.

With that bit of reminiscing done, Aya continued her way down the steps. She soon noticed someone else approaching, also on their way towards the printing presses. Aya was the first to give a greeting. “Well now, are you on your way to publish your latest scoop?”

“...Most people say ‘hello’ before prying into business, you know?” Hatate sounded annoyed, though she returned Aya’s smile with one of her own. “And maybe I do. If you want to spoil my articles, you won’t do it just by asking.”

Hatate Himekaidou, who runs the Kakashi Spirit News, tried to sound indifferent, though the eagerness in her voice and the folder in her hands made it quite clear that she was there to submit a story that day.

Though Aya still thought Hatate was fairly fresh to the journalism scene, at least compared to Aya herself, she and Hatate had established something of a ‘rivalry’, where they decided some time ago to be the ones pushing each other to do their best, lest either of them were to get complacent about the quality of their papers.

Aya shook her head. “I already have a scoop of my own. As it happens, it is already in print. You could stand to be a little earlier, I think now is about the time the yamabushi get really busy.”

Hatate wasn’t worried about that in the slightest.“The fact that you’re here sooner than me just means you haven’t put as much time refining your writing.”

“I refine my words exactly as much as I need to highlight my photos. Otherwise, I’d just be bloating the word count to make it look more substantial than it really is. I am all chop-chop and snip-snip for efficiency, you know?” Aya replied in her usual carefree tone. “It makes me wonder how your stories will compare to mine this month.”

“I can totally tell you’re trying to bait me into sharing mine first.” Hatate gave a flippant wave of her hand, brushing off the fact that she was just a little curious as to what Aya’s newest paper was like. “You are soooo not as subtle as you think you are. I am going to take my time today, making sure they print my paper exactly how I envision it.”

“You do seem the type who’d only be satisfied with handing in your work in person. Careful, some of the printers might not like you telling them how to do their jobs.”

“That doesn’t stop you, does it?” Hatate was already suspecting that the yamabushi tengu within the offices today had to deal with Aya’s pushy self earlier. “I’m way more polite than you are. After dealing with you, I’ll cheer them up by spreading some of my good mood today.”

Aya had to admit, there was something slightly more bubbly about her fellow reporter than usual. “Oh, and what’s got you in such a good mood?”

“I just feel like I have an extra spring in my step today, like it’s pushing me from behind! You better watch out for the sales of whatever you publish, because I have a really good feeling about Kakashi Spirit News this time.”

Aya couldn’t help but grin as Hatate walked past her, the other’s enthusiasm was even a little infectious. “In that case, I will definitely look forward to-”

Aya stopped short, momentarily at a loss for words when she saw Hatate from behind.

“...Hatate? Hey, Hatate?!”

“Hm?” Hatate stopped and looked over her shoulder at Aya, who was now staring at her in surprise. “W-What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I… don’t think your story is why you’ve been feeling perky today.” Aya said as she stepped towards Hatate.

“What do you mean-” Hatate had started to turn around before Aya held her by the shoulders so that her back was still facing the other. “H-Hey, what are you doing?!”

“I assume you haven’t noticed this? The door on your back.” Aya asked, giving two knocks on the door that was situated right on Hatate’s back. The sound of wood being tapped on behind her made Hatate’s jaw drop. “Hello, hello? Anybody home?”

“A  _ what  _ on my  _ what _ ?!” Hatate craned her neck to try and see, and her hands scrambled for her back to find the door. Its presence was obvious now, and she realised just then that her shoulders had felt heavier all day, yet she had somehow missed it until now. “What is this!? How?! Whyyyy-”

While Hatate was scrambling in place, Aya took a step back and stared quizzically at her with arms crossed. “I’ve seen this phenomenon before. You remember when I told you about it, don’t you? During that incident with the seasons.”

“R-right, I remember now…” Hatate let herself calm down, just a little bit. “Wait, so did you put this on me?! Get it off right now!”

“I did nothing of the sort! As for getting it off, we can try the simplest solution first…” Aya then gripped onto the edges of the door’s sides with both hands, before beginning to pull and trying to pry the door off Hatate’s back.

“Ow!” Hatate nearly lost balance as she felt herself being tugged backwards. “Take it easy! I don’t want to lose any feathers!”

“I am barely putting in any strength-” Aya was just about to pull harder, when she noticed a faint light emanating from the door. 

In the next moment, there was a bright flash as the door suddenly swung open, with something coming out in a rush. It caused Hatate and Aya to both stumble and fall to the floor.

Floating in the air above them was a pair of strange figures, who glanced around their immediate surroundings.

“What…” Aya looked up in bewilderment, before quickly recognising the pair.

“...Are we in the right place?” Mai Teireida said, adjusting her green dress and resting a bamboo stalk over her shoulder. She looked to her left and right, taking in the sight of the mountain walls and buildings in the distance. “This is where the tengu live? I was expecting something like a big nest.”

“It’s sorta like that, isn’t it? Plus, there are two tengu right here.” The second of the pair, Satono Nishida, wearing a pink dress and holding a branch of ginger in her hand, spoke as she looked down. When she glanced at Aya though, her face lit up with surprise. “Oh, not just  _ any _ tengu either! I can’t believe we’ve run into each other again...”

“You two...!” Aya quickly stood up, as the two of them descended to the floor. “Why are you of all people here?!”

“More importantly…” Hatate also picked herself up from the ground, still rather dazed about the whole thing. “D-did these people just come out of my back?”

“Geez, we just arrived and the first thing that happens is us being bombarded with questions.” Satono said with an amused tone. “I guess crow tengu really are all busy-bodies. Right, Mai?”

“Don’t I know it. It’s none of your business!” Mai quickly said to the tengu before turning away from them. “Say, Satono, let’s start checking out the sights of this nest. I wonder where they lay their eggs?”

Mai and Satono giggled among themselves, and turned towards a different direction. Before they took more than two steps though, Aya zipped right in front of them within a blink of an eye. 

“It is very much our business!” Aya got over her surprise fairly quickly, and looked between the two of them with great suspicion. At the same time, she had her pen and notebook ready in her hands.

Aya knew Mai and Satono as the ‘dancers’ and servants under the employ of Okina Matara, the ‘secret god’. She couldn’t imagine for what purpose the hidden sage would send her servants into the tengu’s home, but any outsiders appearing uninvited was cause for alarm and would likely invite a lot of clamour, especially from the higher-ups.

...And it was also incredibly potent material for an article.

“A ‘busy-body’ like me isn’t going to just let you off until you explain and elaborate on everything.” Aya stepped closer, and was practically right in the two’s faces. “Why are you here? Wait, no, we should start from even earlier. Perhaps an anecdote about why you two are as eccentric as you are.”

“Eccentric? We prefer ‘mad’, like bamboo and ginger’!” Satono said, taking a slight step back to put some much-needed space between her and the reporter.

“I don’t know what is so ‘mad’ about either of these things, but it’s catchy.” Aya quickly noted that down. “Now continue to spill. Spill!”

“Hey, hello?!” Hatate frantically waved for their attention, pointing again at the door on her back. “Can someone explain this first?! Or better yet, get it off me!”

“Oh, that?” Mai met Hatate’s agitation with a nonchalant tone. “You just happened to be the first tengu we spotted outside the mountain, so thank you for showing us the way in.”

“Wha… How long were you two hiding behind me?! How does that even work!?”

“Stop scaring the fledgling.” Aya said to Mai. “She’ll go back to being a shut-in.”

“No, I won’t!” Hearing that made Hatate calm down just a little. She moved beside Aya, grumbling to herself. “I’d like to see you try to stay calm when two people pop out of your back…”

Aya then turned her attention back to Mai and Satono. “Neither you have answered what you’re even doing here.”

“You really want to know?” Satona asked. She and Mai shared a smile between themselves before she further answered. “I guess we can tell you.”

“The gist of it is…” Mai and Satono clasped hands, and then struck a dramatic, symmetrical pose to the two crow tengu, before declaring their intention in unison. “We’re here to cause trouble!”

The tengu just stared at the dancers as they held their pose the whole time.

“Wow…” Hatate in particular was incredulous at the pair’s attitude. “Just coming right out and admitting that, huh?”

Aya meanwhile, almost seemed amused. “I suppose I can appreciate being straightforward. Did you two just feel like it, or…?”

The dancers dropped their pose and Satono answered Aya in a cheery tone. “As it happens, we’re here on business. You see, Master has given us the important task of observing all the residents of this mountain. We’re to evaluate the routines and practices of various youkai, all part of checking on the status of this strange land called Gensokyo. Naturally, that included our Master’s ancestral enemies, the tengu.”

“When you say Master… You’re talking about Matara-jin, right?” Hatate asked.

“They are.” Aya was the one to answer. “Okina Matara. I recall her saying that she was still plenty curious about this land and it’s youkai.”

“But just watching is boring!” Mai suddenly, even more cheerily than Satono. “So we’ve decided to run an experiment alongside our observation! You tengu are big about rules and order, aren’t you? So we got to wondering how well you’d all handle something unprecedented. I bet this society has never had intruders appearing inside their home out of thin air, right?!”

“What kind of reason is that…?” Somehow Hatate found herself feeling even more incredulous than she was a few moments ago. “If you were ordered to ‘observe’, then you’re just messing up your own job on purpose!”

“Hey, don’t try to tell us how to do our jobs!” Mai said, defensively. “There is more to our work and intentions than could be understood by a mere crow tengu like yourself.”

“You literally just said it was because you’re bored…”

“Oh yeah. I did, didn’t I?” Mai paused for a moment, then just laughed to herself “...Okay, maybe you do understand it.”

Satono herself let out a small laugh at that. “Oh Mai, you’re so easy to read. That’s one of your charm points, though.”

Mai shrugged. “We can’t all be as enigmatic as Master, you know!”

Hatate looked between the two of them with an utterly baffled expression, before turning to Aya. “What’s up with these two?”

“That’s just how they are.” Aya said flatly before addressing the dancers. “More importantly, if you go ahead and start making a ruckus here just for the sake of it, that is as good as declaring war on all tengu, assuming you’re not torn apart in mere seconds by every tengu present. It would be such a short-lived scheme that even I would have a hard time writing a worthwhile article about it.”

“Oh?” Satono seemed strangely pleased at hearing that. “You think our ‘experiment’ will be worth putting in your newspaper?”

“Well, it  _ is _ my specialty to find scoops in even the most unassuming of places, so-”

“Ooh, is that a promise?” Mai suddenly got up close to Aya, grinning as she spoke. “Seeing a tengu newspaper covering our exploits against the tengu themselves would be a rather fun and ironic way to gauge your reactions. It might actually make a tengu paper worth reading!”

“I suppose… Yes. Yeah, that’s right!” Aya was quick to let the insult slide, if only because she’s heard far worse from those closer to her. Instead of lingering on that, she found herself happily boasting about her pride as a reporter. “If either of you two did anything newsworthy here, a model reporter like myself would naturally be on top of it!”

“Hey.” Hatate then nudged Aya with her elbow. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

Without waiting for an answer, Hatate pulled Aya off to the side and started whispering to her.

“Aren’t you being a liiiiittle too lax around these weirdos? We should turn them in to the white wolf tengu before they do anything bad.”

“I never took you for such a law-abiding citizen.” Aya whispered back.

“It’s more like if these two break something, I have a feeling the blame is gonna find its way to us somehow! Why are you so calm about this!? I thought when it came to the order and upkeep of our domain, you were as uptight as any other old coot.”

“None of those are accurate to describe me… But I’m not worried either. If these two actually tried to cause any harm, I would blow them into next week without a second thought. That’s why I figure we might as well try to squeeze a scoop out of them while they’re right in front of us. Where’s your reporter spirit?”

“I guess I get it… So you really don’t think these two are any dangerous?”

“They might be a danger to public peace, but as long as I have my eyes on them, they are not going to- Where did they go?”

Aya glanced over her shoulder, only to see that Mai and Satono were no longer standing there.

“Ah! Over there!” Hatate shouted as she pointed in the distance. Mai and Satono had taken flight off the edge of the hillside and were heading towards the busy and crowded heart of the district crossroads.

“Hey! What are you two doing…?!” Aya called out, but they either didn’t hear her or they were ignoring her. It was a bit of a worrying thought for Aya. Two intruders suddenly making themselves present in the heart of their secluded society was surely going to result in chaos.

“Oh my gosh, I thought they were at least going to try to be sneaky about it or something, but they’re heading right for a crowd… What are they going to do?”

“I don’t know, but come on! We have to follow them!”

“Right! ... First, tell me if there’s still a big gaping hole in my back-”

“No time for that!”

Aya flew towards the main streets in the distance alongside Hatate. Just as they had landed close by, Mai and Satono had positioned themselves in the air directly above the crossroads. From there, the pair announced themselves to the bustling crowd.

“Hear ye, hear ye! All you tengu, of all types!” The two of them shouted in unison. Any tengu who didn’t already notice them floating in the air above them was now looking up at them in shared confusion.

Now with the crowd’s undivided attention, they proceeded to introduce themselves, the first of them twirling her bamboo stalk to start. “I’m Mai Teireida!”

“And I’m Satono Nishida! The two of us come with a message- No, an announcement from our master: The hidden sage, the tengu-warding secret god of impairment, Okina Matara! You might have heard of her!”

Already, there was gossiping and whispering among all the tengu present, yet all of them were transfixed on the two and what they might have to say. The same was true for Aya and Hatate, who were also both watching from afar.

Their voices carried clearly through the air, easily reaching everyone. Mai continued the ‘announcement’ while gesturing dramatically. “You tengu might have had your fun, controlling the flow of information in Gensokyo, but that’s only because our master has allowed it all this time! She has eyes and ears everywhere, and her influence reaches deep within all who reside in this land, whether they be human or youkai, and your society is no exception!”

This got the biggest reaction out of the crowd of tengu so far, all expressing varying but all angry reactions of disbelief.

“We’re here today to let you all know in advance that she’ll be going back to controlling the information from all beings as she sees fit, so frankly, all your services are now obsolete.” Satono picked things up, spreading her arms out for dramatic effect. “Any interesting news you might find from here on out will only be because of her doing, so this is us telling you that you can all stop working so hard and so pointlessly! Rejoice! And dance for that!”

As Mai and Satono continued twirling in the air, Hatate nudged Aya and whispered to her. “Aya, are those two for real? You’ve met this ‘secret god’ before, so how does all this stuff they’re saying track?”

“It does not quite fit with what she told me last time, though it hardly matters.” Aya said as she observed Mai and Satono with a narrowed stare. “Those two already said themselves they are just doing this to provoke a reaction out of the tengu.”

“Yeah, and it just might work too! I mean as far as anyone else knows, they could be telling the truth. It wouldn’t even be the first time that a god wanted to encroach on our territory, except this one’s being even more brazen!”

“Those two definitely know how to work a crowd…” Aya glanced to the rest of the dancer’s audience. As shocked as the tengu were by the dancer’s statements, they were completely engrossed in the ‘performance’.

...It helped that Mai and Satono were also literally performing as they spoke, now locked hand-in-hand, facing the crowd as they raised their legs in synchronized kicks from left to right.

After doing an extended twirl, the pair finished off with a mirrored pose before Mai spoke again. “-And if you don’t like that, you could try to do something about it, but tough luck! Tengu wouldn’t stand a chance against her!”

“They’re really good, though...” Hatate couldn’t help but be engrossed by their moves. “Being able to talk while moving like that…-”

Hatate glanced towards Aya, only then noticing that the other was staring straight ahead, her hands balled into fists that were just barely trembling.

“...Aya? Something wrong?” Hatate tentatively asked. Her first thought was that Aya was trembling with anger. Someone like Aya who had as much pride in their people as she did, was probably greatly offended at any outsider having the audacity to offend the tengu on such a level-

“I’m about to burst from excitement!” Aya all but shouted with the biggest possible grin. “This might just be the story of the century! Their announcement is like a challenge to our entire society as a whole, daring us to prove ourselves! Such provocation can only be a shock to every tengu alive!”

“Y-You really think so?” Though she asked, Hatate already realised there was a good chance the dancer’s bizarre performance might prove alarming especially for the big shots of their people.

“I can already see the inevitable announcement from the daitengu. They’ll have a messenger spread the word and hand out instructions about how everyone is to proceed in light of this shocking turn of events.”

“Wait, you don’t think we’re going to take up arms against that secret god, do you?!” Hatate asked, suddenly distressed at that thought.

“Oh, please. Nobody outside the wolf tengu has picked up a sword in over six centuries!” Just the thought of any of this generation’s tengu going to a serious battle made Aya want to laugh. “What I do think will happen is that they will want to rely on their most trustworthy reporters to learn everything about what these backdoor people know, and what they’re up to.”

“Okay, that I can get behind.” Past the trepidation Hatate was still feeling, she couldn’t help but feel a similar bubbling excitement to Aya, over what felt like a significant scoop brewing. “It’s a shame though. Like, why did they have to do this in front of such a big crowd? Now every single reporter’s going to want in on this scoop...”

“Well, they weren’t likely to give a challenge to all our people just to you in private. Now if it were me, that’s another matter.”

“Whaaaat? Why in the world would they go to you?”

“Because there is precedent for it! I have faced off against Okina Matara before, remember? Not to mention I was representing all tengu at the time.”

“I don’t know if you’d have been my pick for ‘representation’…”

“Only if you didn’t make good decisions.” Aya turned away, ignoring Hatate rolling her eyes.

Approaching fast from elsewhere though, were a group of wolf tengu with their weapons ready, calling out to the dancers. “Intruders! Surrender yourselves!”

“Uh oh! That’s our cue to leave.” Satono said, not the least bit nervous, and Mai nodded in agreement. The two quickly flew lower to the ground… and then headed straight for Hatate.

“Woah, wait, are they coming this way-?!” Hatate stepped back, but the pair were already right on top of her, before jumping right into the door that was still on her back, despite Hatate scurrying about in a panic. “Wargh!”

“Wait, you two! I still have questions…!” Aya spoke fast, and reached out for the door, intending to follow them if need be. However, it disappeared entirely just before she could touch it. “Ah! They remembered to close the door on their way out this time. ...Or should I say their way  _ in _ ?”

“Gross! Don’t say it like that! You make it sound like they went inside of me...” Hatate shivered, and reached for her back one more time to check for certain that the door was gone.

“They disappeared!” The wolf tengu that were giving chase landed nearby, and one rushed up to Hatate. “You! Did you see where those two went?!”

“Uh, well… That’s a bit hard to say.” Hatate wasn’t sure how to begin explaining that they entered a door that was behind her but was now gone.

“You’re not collaborating with those intruders, are you…?” The wolf tengu got right up to Hatate’s face. “If you’re hiding them…”

“Excuse me!?” Hatate barked back. ”I’m the most confused here out of anybody!”

“I can explain where they went.” Aya spoke up, drawing everyone’s attention to her. “It would probably be more efficient to make an official report on it right away. I believe the daitengu especially will want to hear everything about what just happened as soon as possible.”

“You’re right… They need to be informed as soon as possible.” The wolf tengu nodded in agreement. “Intruders appearing like that is a grave matter, and who knows what their intentions are.”

“Oh, I can make a few guesses...” Aya couldn’t help but smirk. “But whatever it is, you can count on me to uncover the truth of this matter!”


	2. Chapter 2

After a trip to the station, Aya explained on the record for the wolf tengu to mark down, the gist of the situation and all the essential details. Mai and Satono used a peculiar technique of opening doors on people’s back in order to enter tengu territory undetected, and then escape to someplace they could not be followed. She was also sure to remind anyone curious about those two to read her archived articles about the secret god.

During that time, the wolf tengu sent out some of their troops to search the immediate area around the perimeters of the mountain, in case the intruders were still nearby. Those very troops had just returned, the leader of the assigned squad making her way towards the stations to make a report, when she was hailed by Aya who was flying overhead. The wolf tengu pre-emptively sighed. 

“Back already?” Aya landed nearby, before approaching the familiar wolf tengu with her usual sprightly attitude. “I hope our trustworthy security detail has some productive updates, assuming you weren’t just taking it easy?”

“I literally just got back.” Momiji did not stop walking, nor did she turn her head to Aya. “Could you please not pester me right now?”

A lot of Momiji Inubashiri’s conversations with Aya tended to start with Aya passing by while she was on patrol duty around the mountainside, and the crow tengu rather patronisingly asking if she was doing her job properly. On occasion, it even escalated into a fight, but chances of that happening within the streets were much slimmer. Probably.

“So that's a ‘no’, then? Well, in this instance, I would tell you not to feel too bad.” Aya said as she walked alongside Momiji. “The way those folks from the backdoor hop through, well, doors, they could have been on the other side of Gensokyo within seconds. I tried to explain that too, but they insisted on sending a search party.”

“It was my insistence, actually.” Momiji let out a second sigh, though this one was directed at herself. “For outsiders to breach our territory’s borders, while I was on duty! This is the worst possible shame. I was hoping to make up for it if I could track them down, but even with my telegnosis, I found no trace of them…”

“Like I said, their strange abilities probably aren’t covered in any of your training. I doubt even the higher-ups will be too hard on you, and I know that’s the only reason you care.”

“Are you kidding?! I wouldn’t be surprised if the daitengu had me banished from Youkai Mountain by the end of the day for my disgraceful performance!”

Aya did her best not to appear too amused at Momiji’s distress. She managed to reduce her grin to a small smile. “If you are that worried, you can count on your pure and honest Shameimaru. Next time I see any of them, I will be sure to put in a good word for you.”

“Please no. The thought of you saying anything about me to the daitengu gives me actual chills…”

“You know, none of the higher-ups are as scary as you think. I am willing to bet even Lord Tenma would share a drink with you.”

“You can’t just say things like that aloud!” Momiji said, shocked at what she was hearing. “I cannot believe you haven’t landed in more trouble with them, with how carefree you are in your disrespect.”

“I have just as much respect for my fellow tengu as you do. Well, putting aside your ire against crow tengu, of course.”

“You mean my ire against  _ you _ , right?” Momiji narrowed her eyes at Aya, who either didn’t pick up on it or brushed it off.

Just as they had reached the station, they saw Hatate, glumly coming out of the entrance.

“Hatate?” Aya was quick to notice the sour expression on Hatate’s face. “Did they only just finish their questions for you?”

“That’s right.” Hatate said, half-grumbling. “When did they let you out?”

“About forty minutes ago. I suppose they had a lot to ask you?”

“More like a lot of nothing!” Hatate whined as she stretched her arms over her head. “Just saying, nobody in there could do a good interview. They could ask the same question ten times and not be satisfied no matter how many times I tell them the same answer!”

“Don’t take it personally.” Momiji said. “They’re just being thorough and professional.”

“And honestly...” Aya said with a shrug. “...That’s what you get for going the whole morning without noticing there was a door on your back. Rather unobservant for a reporter.”

“Yeah, well, I’m going to spend every morning for the rest of my life checking my back...” Hatate frowned, still embarrassed about that whole affair. “Momiji, if you get the chance, you should ask your fellow white wolf tengu not to be so uptight!”

“Personally, I’ve actually been thinking that they could stand to be a little more ‘uptight’, so it’s good they didn’t go easy on you.” Momiji said with a lighthearted smile.

“Wow! No mercy for me, even though I’m so nice?!” Hatate exclaimed, though she couldn’t stop herself from laughing as she smacked Momiji lightly on the shoulder.

“Ah, show some mercy yourself…!” Momiji likewise let out a small laugh.

Aya half-watched the two, thinking to herself. “ _ Momiji sure is good at acting friendly with crow tengu other than myself... _ ”

At the same time, Aya noticed that in the distance was another crow tengu, hurriedly moving to and fro and leaving red envelopes in every mailbox she passed by. This was mostly likely someone given the task today of being a messenger.

“Ah! The higher-ups have already sent out their decree!” Aya declared as she pointed at the messenger in the distance. Momiji and Hatate both turned and noticed as well, immediately understanding what Aya meant.

All tengu recognised the significance of the red envelope’s design. Whenever either the daitengu or Lord Tenma wished to spread a message, be it a decree, an announcement, or any kind of urgent and important message, it was done so through special print that was then delivered to every estate and place of business as soon as possible.

“I thought it would have taken longer before they decided on something! Ah shoot, this means I missed my chance.” Aya said, pouting.

“Your chance? To what?” Momiji asked.

“I was planning on waiting outside the administrative building, so that when they inevitably sent out a messenger to deliver the decree, I could receive mine right away.”

“You’re not supposed to receive them in person!” Momiji retorted. “And if you know someone is on official business, you shouldn’t be bothering them just to get an underhanded advantage....”

“What an uncharitable interpretation!” Aya acted shocked for all of a second, before continuing. “A model reporter such as myself just wants to be made aware of the facts as soon as possible. Hatate, you understand as well, right?”

“Nope.” Hatate scoffed, before proudly pulling out her camera and flipping it open. “I never have to trouble myself like that thanks to my thoughtography. With it, I can check what’s in my mailbox from anywhere.”

Aya and Momiji just stared at Hatate, both having the same thought. “ _ Even more reason keeping you from stepping outside… _ ”

“Actually they should have passed by my house by now so…” Hatate tapped a few buttons on her camera. A moment later, her eyes lit up in delight. “And there it is, just as I thought.”

“Seriously? Let me see!” Aya quickly moved right beside Hatate.

“Ah, me too!” Momiji moved to Hatate’s other side. “I need to know if the white wolf tengu have any special orders as well!”

“Hey! It’s still my mail you’re reading!” Hatate griped, especially since Aya’s head was right over her shoulder at this point. It wasn’t long before she gave up though, and held out her arm so all of them could read the decree.

While Momiji was tense about what the daitengu’s message would entail for her job, Aya and Hatate were simply enthusiastic about what their next move regarding the recent public disturbance would be. ...That enthusiasm gradually sapped away from their faces, however, as they studied the contents.

“...Huh?” Aya in particular was dumbfounded. “Is that really all of it?”

Hatate meanwhile, just had a disappointed frown. “It is, yeah. ...Gosh, talk about a letdown.”

“You think so?” Momiji actually found herself feeling more relaxed now. “I find it a relief, actually.”

“I might too, but it’s still pretty lame to hear.” Hatate flipped her camera closed, and crossed her arms. “I let myself get all hyped up too. ...I guess if there’s any bright side, we won’t actually be going to war or anything.”

“What, were you worried about that?” Momiji couldn’t help but smirk. “How long has it been since any crow tengu has picked up a sword? A millenia?”

“Apparently six centuries, but that’s not the point!” Hatate indignantly replied. “Hey, Aya. What do you think made them come up with this?”

Hatate turned towards Aya who had moved a few steps away. She was staring ahead with a contemplative expression on her face, still stewing on what she just read. 

“Aya? You look like something’s on your mind.” Hatate asked.

After a moment, Aya spoke up. “A lot is, actually. Questions, mostly. I need to talk to them.”

“Talk to who? Those backdoor weirdos again?”

“To the daitengu.” Aya explained as she started heading towards a different direction.

“Huh?” Hatate and Momiji both blinked at Aya, wondering if they misheard.

“...Wait, really?!” Hatate was perplexed, but when Aya showed no sign of stopping, she quickly shouted after her. “Wait, what about?”

“I have some pressing questions, is all.” That’s all Aya said before flying off.

“Ah, hey!” Momiji called out, before taking flight as well. “Remember what I said! You’re not allowed to talk about me, I mean it!”

Aya and Momiji were soon out of sight, leaving Hatate by herself.

“...What’s with her?” Hatate mused aloud. “Everyone usually goes out of their way to avoid having to talk to the big shots, don’t they? And there she goes heading right to them…”

The disappointment over the decree’s contents had faded, and now she was just curious about what was going on through Aya’s mind. Though she also hoped it wasn’t anything that would involve her.

* * *

_ ‘What appeared to be threats were only the ravings of contradictory beings.’  _

_ ‘All are to resume with their daily duties.’  _

_ ‘Not worthy of any attention whatsoever.’ _

Those were the parts of the daitengu’s decree that had confused and irritated Aya the most, among an entirely confusing and irritating document that was just an elaborate way of stating ‘ _ everyone should just ignore what happened _ ’. She couldn’t stop thinking about it even when she made her way inside the daitengu’s administrative buildings. 

Every tengu who read the decree was either going to be a little confused but brush off the matter just as asked, or be relieved and quickly put it out of mind as soon as possible. Aya had a hard time understanding why either would be the reaction any of the daitengu wanted people to have though. As such, she felt the need to ask them in person in order to clear things up.

That was so far easier said than done, since Aya was unable to make it past the building’s first entrance hall, thanks to the tengu at the management counter refusing to make an appointment for Aya despite her insistence that it was ‘important’.

“But it is important!” Aya insisted. “Momiji, back me up.”

“I don’t want to.” Momiji was standing a few steps back, not wanting to be associated. She had followed Aya in the hopes of stopping her from causing trouble to either of them, but so far it looked like desk management was doing a good enough job of that.

The hanataka tengu that Aya was harassing just shook her head again. “You need a more specific reason to see the daitengu than just ‘having questions’.

Aya wasn’t budging quite yet. “Can’t you at least pass them a message, say it’s ‘Pure and Honest Shameimaru’ who wants to see them?”

“Uh, is that name… important to them?”

“Well, I try my best to be humble, but…” Aya started with a bright smile, but was cut off by Momiji pulling her back by the shoulder until they were in the middle of the hall.

“Would you give it up already? I know you’re used to bothering people at their jobs, but this is getting ridiculous.”

Aya turned around to face Momiji, her confident tone persisting. “Aren’t you at all curious about the strange decision that came to that decree?”

“No, not at all! It’s nothing to do with me. Is whatever this is about really worth taking up the daitengu’s time?”

“Momiji, do you really think I would take up the time of those among the highest echelon for something like a whim?”

“Yes, I absolutely do.” Momiji replied, without missing a beat.

“Well, you’re wrong.” Aya gestured to herself as she went on. “I came all this way because I seek the truth, like any model reporter should.”

Momiji was just about to respond to that with more skepticism, when a different voice did it for her.

“Isn’t that your excuse for everything, Shameimaru?”

Momiji and Aya both turned towards the source of the voice, coming from who had just entered the hall and overheard the conversation.

A tall, imposing figure in ornate robes, and a face covered by an intricately-painted, long-nosed mask that spoke of a sagely status. This was the ‘standard’ outfit of those of the highest rank, even the silhouette unmistakable as a daitengu.

“Good afternoon.” The daitengu, this one wearing a blue mask, greeted in a hoarse voice. ”What exactly is this business you have?

Aya relaxed to a more neutral pose. “Oh, good afternoon-”

“G-Good afternoon…!” Momiji meanwhile, had straightened up to the point of nearly bending backwards. “I was just on my way to resume my duties, so-”

“That she was.” Aya chimed in. “But Miss Inubashiri was helpful enough to spare time, accompanying me here.”

“Huh?” Momiji’s wide eyes shot towards Aya.

“We had some confusion about the latest decree, and hoped to understand by asking the wise daitengu directly.”

“You…!” Momiji definitely wanted to wring Aya’s neck at this point, but that could wait until they weren’t right in front of a daitengu.

“Hmm.” Though the daitengu’s eyes were hidden behind the mask, Aya could feel them peering at her in scrutiny. “The message we sent out should have been very straightforward. What is there to be confused about?”

“It was straightforward, and that was why I could not make sense of it. I do not believe there was anything to read between the lines, yet I could not understand. Why would you all choose to brush off something as grave as intruders appearing within our territory, intruders that went as far as calling out our entire race with outrageous claims? Was this a unanimous decision?”

Momiji grimaced as she whined internally. “ _ Oh, please do not emphasise the part about them intruding while I was on duty… _ ”

There was a brief pause, before a reply came. “All decisions are unanimous and even consulted with Lord Tenma before being sent to print. I hope you did not come all this way just to question our decision?”

“I am afraid that is exactly it. I am not always attuned to other’s thoughts, I’m afraid.” Aya offered a small, apologetic bow. “Would you once again please show some leniency to your old Shameimaru?”

“ _ Oh my god. _ ” Momiji was doing her best to not wince with every word she was hearing from Aya, who was daring to be cheeky even in front of one of the highest of their order.

The daitengu however, didn’t outwardly react in any particular way. “If you made an appointment just to ask this, that would have been a waste of time.”

“So does that mean you won’t help me skip management at the counter?”

“No I will not. ...Because I can answer your question right here and now. Any of my colleagues would just say what I’m about to tell you.”

While this conversation proceeded, Momiji’s eyes darted between the two in disbelief. Somehow, the daitengu not only didn’t appear angry but was actually giving them the time of day. She still refused to relax her posture though.

“Oh, thank you. And that answer is…?”

“The things those agents of the sage said in their display were indeed outrageous. That is exactly why it was deemed pointless to entertain.”

That wasn’t quite the full-on explanation Aya was hoping for. “But… this is far more prominent than just some lowly peon speaking out of turn.” 

It wasn’t as if Aya thought what Mai and Satono said held that much weight either, especially when they had admitted beforehand that they were doing it just to get a reaction. However, that wasn’t the reason she felt it was worthy of their people’s attention. 

“This was from the servants of Okina Matara, rival to our ancestors, coming into our territory just to loudly undermine our influence in front of all our people. To just let it be and ask everyone to brush it off, it’s as if to say we don’t care at all about such transgression to our pride.”

“We  _ don’t _ care about it. That’s the point.” 

“I’m not sure I follow-”

“They claimed that their god knows better than us, that their control spreads wider than ours. To acknowledge what they said, and to investigate it, is as good as admitting it. Why would we act as if their claims have any weight?”

“That’s…” Aya was momentarily at a loss for words. If this decision really was unanimous, then her perspective on things differed even more from the daitengu than she realised. “...But such a conspicuous event, in front of a whole crowd can’t be so easily forgotten. There are probably a lot of tengu wondering at the back of their minds even still, about what significance that pair has-”

“It doesn’t  _ matter _ what they think, for we have spread the word that it requires no more thought. Whenever tengu are faced with uncertainty, they only need to refer to our judgement to guide them. You haven’t forgotten that applies to you as well, have you?”

Aya wanted to say something to that, but she felt like doing so when others were watching would be undermining the daitengu’s authority, which was sincerely the last thing she wanted to do. She managed to keep an impassive face despite actually feeling more unsatisfied with every word she was hearing. This wasn’t even the first time any of the daitengu brushed her off in particular, but this time felt exceptionally frustrating.

“If you  _ still _ don’t understand....” The tone of the words made it rather clear that Aya’s poker face was more transparent than she thought it was. “...then just remember it is our judgement. That alone should be enough for you to drop the matter.”

“Of course.” Aya replied, slower than she intended to.

“...You  _ will _ drop the matter, will you not?”

Aya opened her mouth, but hesitated. She did not like to lie, but she didn’t know if she was ready to answer that question honestly.

“Actually,  _ you _ don’t have any doubts left either, right?” The question was directed at Momiji, who nearly jumped at being addressed after all this time.

“Oh, uh, no! None whatsoever! That cleared up everything, thank you very much for explaining!” Momiji quickly replied with as much forced sincerity as she could manage, before taking Aya by the arm. “We shall be on our way…!”

Momiji proceeded to drag Aya towards the exit, not wanting to pass up the chance to end this conversation right then and there. Aya didn’t resist being dragged away, since she hadn’t been able to come up with a response to anything that’s been said to her. So she simply stayed silent with a pensive expression, looking back only briefly at her superior before she and Momiji exited the building.


	3. Chapter 3

“-cannot believe your gall! And you had to try and drag me down with you just in case!” Momiji had not stopped her grumbling at Aya since they left the administrative building.

“I thought it would help my case if I had one other person in agreement.” Aya casually explained as they both flew towards the residential districts.

“You didn’t have me in agreement!” Momiji was fairly sure she lost years off her lifespan earlier. “Do you always act so familiar around the daitengu?”

“It’s not as if I was acting like we were on a first-name basis or anything. Compared to my usual self, I was all business-business, was I not?”

“There’s still an expected kind of attitude we’re meant to adopt when in the presence of-”

”I know that better than anyone, yes, yes.” Aya was quick to reply. “But it is still hard to treat them like strangers even if that’s what they want. Forgive me if I slip a little around tengu that I’ve known since they were infants.”

If it wasn’t for the occasional reminder, Momiji might have forgotten that Aya was one of the oldest of tengu around. “Well, you certainly don’t act your age.”

Aya just chuckled at that. “That just means I have plenty of spring in my wings.”

Momiji and Aya arrived near the river’s edge. Aya’s house was just ahead, while Momiji’s home was towards the opposite direction and lower along the mountainside.

Before Momiji turned to leave, she gave Aya one more dubious glance. “...So what was all that about, anyway? Why try to go directly to them just to ask that question?”

“I just wasn’t happy with that decree, is all.” Aya explained with a shrug. “I wanted to understand, and maybe even get the daitengu to reconsider. Though I knew that last part was going to be a long-shot.”

“Ah, because you really wanted to write an article about what happened, right? With how far you’d go for your newspaper, I could believe you’u’d bother even the daitengu about it.”

“There’s more to it than just that!” Aya replied, consternation seeping into voice as she headed for her house’s entrance.

“There is…?”

“To begin with, just ignoring the matter is so unlike how a reporter should act. When a scoop appears in front of us, it’s only natural to pursue. Scoop! Pursue! Like instinct.” 

Aya stood in front of her door, but then turned around to face Momiji as she continued, more passionate than before.

“That is doubly so if it concerns someone attacking our very network of information, which is the tengu’s greatest pride which we stake all our efforts on! To pretend that ‘performance’ didn’t happen is like going against our nature as tengu, the proud beings who are always willing to defend their own honour, don’t you think?”

“I think I get where you’re coming from.” At the very least, Momiji was always quick to defend her own honour when someone, usually Aya, attacked her pride. “Still, this can’t possibly be the first time a story turned into a bust for you. If the orders from up high say to drop it, then there’s nothing to be done about it. We should trust the daitengu to know what they’re saying. If they believe it’s pointless to investigate further, then it likely is.”

“I didn’t get to decide if it was a bust or not. “ Aya said with a resigned sigh before throwing up her hands. “But that’s as far as a crow tengu like myself can protest. Fortunately, I have a dessert cup in my kitchen to help me get over it.”

“I don’t doubt you will get over it. Knowing you, you’ll find something new and inane to write about by tomorrow.” Momiji said as she turned to leave.

“...That’s reassuring.” Aya said, managing a smile. “Since you mention that, would you care to be one of my newest topics of interest in the near future?”

“Pass.” Momiji replied bluntly without stopping or turning around.

“Give it time.” Aya said quietly to herself before opening the door to her home.

...Only to find another door, ornate and metal behind it.

Aya starred in silent confusion for a few seconds. Her first thought was that she didn’t notice any kind of handle on the new door. Her second thought was that there were more important things to question than the lack of handles.

Of course, with the subject of doors in mind, it was obvious to assume a certain pair was involved. Aya turned around and was thankful that Momiji had not walked far away enough to be out of sight.

“Momiji! I need your help!” Aya quickly called out, hoping that the sword Momiji carried might be useful in prying this door open.

“I said I’ll pass being your topic of interest!” Momiji shouted back without turning around.

“That’s not-”

Aya was so distracted over the sound of their own shouting, that she didn’t notice the strange door had opened on its own. She likewise didn’t notice the two pairs of hands that reached out until they had grabbed her, covering her mouth and pulling her into the space behind.

All Momiji heard was what sounded like a faint yelp and a door being closed twice. She curiously turned her head, only to see that the door to Aya’s house was shut.

“...I guess she’s eager to get back to her articles.” Momiji didn’t think anything of it, and went on her way.

Meanwhile, Aya was experiencing a bit of disorientation. When she was pulled beyond the door, her feet that had been dragging against the ground were suddenly over air, and she completely lost track of which direction was which as her surroundings all turned into a wash of strange colours.

Fortunately, being so used to flying in the skies allowed Aya to adjust soon enough, allowing her to recognise the expanse around her as the Land of the Backdoor even before spotting multiple floating doors in the distance.

However, she still had no idea why she was here, and was currently trying to pry those hands off her.

“Tengu reporter, get!” Mai said excitedly. “That was actually a lot closer than I would have liked.”

“We really had to act on the spot.” Satono added. “If you were going to show up before we expected, you could have at least knocked first- Oof!”

Satono was cut off by an elbow to the gut, followed by Aya finally managing to push both dancers off her at once. “Get off of me!”

Aya turned around to face the two and pulled out her hauchiwa fan, pointing it between them.

“You made a big mistake, trying to abduct this tengu when she’s already not in a great mood!”

Mai didn’t appear that concerned. “If you’re in a bad mood, why don’t you just fan yourself until you’re-”

Aya whipped the fan upwards once, and a miniature gale was instantly produced beneath Mai. It lifted her upwards, and sent her spinning wildly in the air all in the span of a few seconds.

“Aaaah…!” While Mai tried and failed to balance herself, Satono just seemed mildly amused.

“There’s no need for violence, Miss Tengu.” Satono casually spoke. “We just hoped to have a little private discussion. It took quite some time for us to find out which of those hundreds of houses belonged to Aya Shameimaru, you know.”

“Is that right?” Aya narrowed her eyes, her wrist ready to whip up another gale at any given moment. “So you two ambushed me just to have a chat? I thought you hated having tengu in here, and that you got a scolding for it the last time it happened.”

“Obviously, that was different.” Satono said.

“Yeah…” Mai finally got over her dizziness and spoke up. “Last time, you forced your way in and that led to problems for us. I still have bad memories about it… This time is different, because we brought you here ourselves!”

Aya crossed her arms as she listened. These two had always been very straightforward with their intentions, so it was hard to believe there was any deceit going on. “So I take it that this isn’t about revenge for the last time I was here, when I made you look bad in front of your master?”

“Nothing that dramatic.” Satono said with a small laugh. “We were just interested in what progress you’ve made.”

“Progress…?”

“Why so confused? You sound like you don’t remember.” Satono said.

“You told us earlier, didn’t you?” Mai asked, standing up and looking over Aya in puzzlement. “You said that once we did something newsworthy, you’d be all over it. Or something like that.”

“Oh…” Aya quickly recalled her excited conversation with the dancers from before. It occurred to her just how much that excitement had deflated in the last hour or so. “That’s right. I did say something like that, about how I would be on top of anything you did here. What of it?”

“We’ve been too busy hiding to see how your society has handled our provocative performance, so we came to ask you about it!”

“Hiding? Wait, you don’t mean you two have been hiding in my house, do you?”

“Of course not.” Mai said, as if it were obvious. “We were only looking around inside there for about ten minutes. Before that, we’ve been all over you tengu’s nest.”

“Oh, is that all…” Aya made a mental note to look into some kind of magic seal or lock for her house later.

“Before that, we’ve been all over you tengu’s nest. We took a tour and your mailing offices, your stores, your cafes...” Satono explained, before showing off a small camera in her hands. “Picked up a few souvenirs too, like this toy here.” 

“Did you steal that from one of our supply chains?” Aya asked, though she was more concerned in general about how the dancers apparently have had a run of the tengu’s territory and managed it without being spotted by anyone. A part of her wondered if she should try turning in these two to the tengu’s authorities, and another part of her wondered if that would even do any good.

“I thought I could take pictures with it, but nothing happens when I press the button.”

“We can all worry about that later.” Satono said, waving her hand offhandedly before turning to Aya. “First, please do us a favour and tell us if the tengu are still shaking in their geta because of us!”

Mai and Satono looked at Aya expectantly with bright smiles, which should have still annoyed Aya, but her thoughts turned back to how the daitengu were brushing off the earlier occurrence, and how everyone was fine with following suit.

“Everybody who saw you was probably angry, confused and maybe a little scared too...” Aya explained. “...for a little while, anyway.”

The dancers shared a confused look, each wondering if they were missing something. “What do you mean?”

“The gist of it is that the higher-ups in our society wanted everybody to just ignore that whole performance of yours, to disregard it completely as being newsworthy.” Aya further explained in an unenthusiastic manner. “By now, most of the tengu are probably already treating it as a quirky but inconsequential little event, and they’ll put it out of their mind soon enough.”

“Whaaaaat?” Mai whined in disbelief. Neither of them had actually been that invested in the tengu’s reaction, more sticking around due to curiosity... That is, until this very moment, where they felt like their efforts were being shunned.

“Are you serious?” Satono said, disappointed. “I thought all of you would be freaking out, if not for our performance, then at least because we totally bypassed your security.”

Mai nodded in agreement. “I’d have expected the big bosses of the tengu would be out for our blood, since we disrespected literally every law of theirs at once.”

“So did I, actually...” Aya said before floating backwards and leaning against a random floating door. “But apparently, they would prefer not to acknowledge you or any potential threat you might bring.”

“You are serious! I can’t believe this.” Satono was pouting now. “I’m not used to being written off on such a large-scale… I almost want to laugh about it, if I wasn’t a little ticked off too.”

“I mean, it is a little funny.” Mai said with a shrug. ““That they have entire flocks of reporters but don’t feel like using any of them.”

“Funny is not how I would describe it.” Aya muttered.

“If I were a big great tengu leader type of person...” Mai continued. “...I’d have everyone I know go after the mysterious pair of dancers who insulted my whole way of doing things. Seriously, aren’t tengu supposed to be a petty species?”

“We’re  _ prideful _ .” Aya corrected, not that she actually thought Mai said that by accident.

“I suppose they’re just that confident that nothing could threaten them.” Satono added. “Or is it arrogance to believe this society’s network is that great? What do you think, Miss Tengu?”

“It- ...We  _ are _ great.” Aya was about to leave it there, but she continued, just a little more impassioned. “...But it also was arrogant in it’s own way. No, worse than arrogance!”

Mai and Satono glanced at Aya, who was frowning now. For a moment, they both wondered if they had unknowingly hit a sore spot for the reporter.

“They think even acknowledging the idea of something or someone outdoing us is blasphemy. The daitengu don’t even want to consider the possibility that they might not be all-knowing!”

“I get it.” Satono said. “So tengu are prideful, but just in a different direction than we were expecting this time.”

“Even suggesting a threat exists only makes them want to dismiss it as folly!” Aya kept on going, unable to pass up the chance to let out some of the thoughts she’s been holding back. “Those in charge have no desire to defend our pride or overcome any challenges, to the point where they would ask us all to look away from a potential scoop! And the rest of us just have to accept that! It’s foolish. It’s utterly bone-headed. It’s… It’s…!”

“Ooh!” Mai excitedly interrupted. “It’s  _ bird-brained _ of them!”

The silent stares that followed made her excitement diminish quickly.

“...What? I thought you were going for something funny.”

Satono patted her on the back. “I thought it was funny.”

“Then why didn’t you laugh?!” Mai asked, though Satono just continued comforting her.

Aya shook her head in disappointment. “I think the most frustrating part is that they are right in a sense. There is nothing to be concerned about, since that performance was just you two deciding to be a public menace for a day.”

“What! So now you’re writing us off too, huh?!” Mai exclaimed, suddenly offended. “We might have just said what we did for kicks, but we could throw this entire society into chaos if we really wanted to. We are after all, experts in tengu-warding.”

Aya wasn’t too convinced. “Once again, I doubt you would get very far in the heart of tengu territory before getting torn apart. Why would you even want to do that?”

“I’m not saying either of us wants, just that we could! Even though it’d probably be a lot of work, and we’d end up having to fight a hundred tengu and- Oh wow, yeah, it does sound like way too much trouble now that I think about it.” Mai couldn’t help but grimace. Warding just one tengu already was one thing, but dealing with the entire congregation sounded like a pain. “Master couldn’t get me to do that much work.” 

“Geez, Mai.” Satono chuckled. “Don’t let Master ever hear you say that! ...Well, it’s a moot point anyway. We might have the occasional role of warding away tengu, but Master isn’t going to try and upset their way of doing things for no reason.”

“Which she absolutely still could, if she wanted to!” Mai was quick to add. “Those tengu should still be quaking in their geta anyway, if they knew how much smarter Master is than all of them put together. Very soon, she’ll know everything about what goes on in this mountain thanks to us, after all.”

“How fortunate for her.” Aya had her doubts about that, especially if ‘everything about what goes on in this mountain’ was to be learned by these two and their observation skills.

“Right. I recalled you promised you’d help our cause by spreading the word of whatever big thing we did, right? So get on that.”

“I said no such thing.” Aya said. “If I made a promise, it was only to myself. I make it my personal business to pursue any scoop I see.”

“Then it’s no different here, isn’t it? I agree wholeheartedly with Mai, by the way.” Satono stood up as well, and smiled at Aya. “You said the tengu higher-ups wanted you all to ignore us? Was that an order or more of a suggestion? Mai and I have long since learned there’s a big difference.”

“...Why do you ask?” Aya couldn’t help but be curious about what Satono was implying.

“Because the point Mai and I are making is that we hold the potential to throw all that the tengu know into chaos if we were dedicated enough. You say we would be unlikely to succeed, but isn’t that potential alone worth being concerned about? Like something worth putting in one of your youkai newspapers?”

“Wow... You almost sound like a reporter yourself.” Aya commented, thinking how that sounded exactly like Aya’s own thought process.

“Oh no, I could never stoop to the kind of menial work you crow tengu do.” Satono quickly added, shaking her head.

“We’re above that kind of thing.” Mai said as well. “You could say instead, that we’re just passionate about spreading madness.”

“Right... Well, that all said, my newspaper only prints the truth, so I can’t just take your word for it to make it into an article.”

“Geh! How lame.” Mai said disappointedly. “Satono, let’s go make a scene in the kappa’s territory next. Maybe it will turn out more thrilling than this little trip has.”

“Now wait just a moment!” Aya added, now smiling as an idea had struck her. “I didn’t mean an article was impossible. You two insist you’re story material? I will have to do some observing of my own to be sure of that.”

“You, observing us?” Mai asked, to which Aya nodded in response.

Satono meanwhile, clasped her hands together in delight. “Ah, I am so glad to hear that! I really did not want to visit the damp home of sticky kappas.”

“We do have to eventually observe them too, though...” Mai said.

“Worry about that later! First, let’s hear out Miss Tengu.” Satono returned Aya’s smile with one of her own. “So then, what is it you hope to ‘observe’?”

“You two say you could cause utter chaos in our society if you wanted to? I will have to come to that conclusion on my own, through some old-fashioned journalism! Snapshots, interview, the whole works! Show me in person how much of our network you really know about, and just how easy it is for you to get around.”

“Huh…” Satono seemed amused at that. “Could it be you want to see us cause mayhem and throw your people into utter disarray?”

“Oh, of course not. I would just stop you two in your tracks if you actually tried to cause any serious trouble.” Aya confidently explained. “I would still like to avoid the inconvenience if it can be helped.”

“Aww, and for a moment I thought you might be as crazy as us.” Mai shrugged her arms. “But who are we to deny someone who wants to see just how capable we are at frightening tengu, even if that someone is a tengu herself.”

“If this goes well, then my readership will get to see just how capable you are too. A win-win for everybody.” Aya exclaimed, her enthusiasm slowly becoming renewed.

“A story like that might make even me interested enough to read a tengu’s crummy paper.” Mai said, sharing a laugh with Satono.

“I never thought I’d hear you say that, Mai! I was thinking the same thing too.” Satono then turned to Aya with a curious expression. “Though, what do you get out of this? You sounded like you were ready to drop the whole matter too, just a little earlier.”

“Me? Well…” Aya thought the answer to that would be obvious, but Satono’s question made her briefly mull over her reasoning for wanting to pursue this scoop.

The usual answer was that Aya simply wanted to write an article, nothing more. All other factors tended to fall second to her simply thinking something was worthwhile enough to be news, and thus deserved to be put in her Bunbunmaru.

That was still true in this instance. However, she couldn’t deny to herself that there was something just a little more this time. Perhaps she wanted to prove a point to her superiors, or that part of her believed that what she was doing would ultimately be a service to her people.

...Whatever the reason, Aya would sort out her thoughts later. For now, she gave Satono an answer she was certain of.

“I believe this will make for a sensational article, which is all the reason a model reporter like myself needs.” Aya answered with conviction. “Now, where do you intend to start with your reign of terror?”


	4. Chapter 4

Season 134 Shimotsuki Extra Edition

**Twin Hindrances Challenge All Of Tengu-kind**

_Hidden Sage’s Not-So-Hidden Test?_

On ○ the ○th, a shocking event was witnessed by many tengu going about their day. A declaration from the servants of Okina Matara (secret god) was made right in the heart of the Center District. The declaration made claims of the secret god possessing a wealth of influence to the point of basically controlling all information that flows across Gensokyo, and that she sought to render the tengu’s network obsolete. To find out just how credible these declarations are, I sought out the servants in question and followed them as best I could. This proved to be difficult as they managed to avoid being seen by the general public the whole time.

For further context, the sage’s servants, Mai Teireida (human?) and Satono Nishida (human?), have been appearing all across Youkai Mountain and letting themselves in and out of the various territories as they see fit. On top of their recent appearance within the home of the tengu, they have also harassed kappa, yamanba, and multiple minor gods. They claim to do all this with the intention of observing and ‘testing’ these various species, as ordered by Okina Matara, and now it is the tengu’s turn.

I first followed the eccentric pair as they infiltrated the white wolf tengu’s supply room during mid-evening. The photograph shown to the right was taken half past midnight, less than a second after I discovered them picking up white wolves’ equipment from the racks. Despite how it may appear, they were not there to steal any of the weapons, as Mai Teireida explained after I confronted her:

“What would we want with such antiquated tools used by beasts? No, the reason we stopped by here is to see with our own eyes if you tengu are still using the same means of production as always. This steel comes from the mines on the northeastern side of the mountain as always. Oh? Was that supposed to be a secret? It obviously isn’t to us, who know everything there is about the tengu.”

Two hours after that, I managed to follow their trail just after they sneaked into the hanataka tengu’s briefing office. Since I had to spend time to explain why I believed there were intruders afoot before I was allowed inside, I only arrived after they had helped their way through the various cabinets and files, leaving documents strewn about everywhere. Satono Nishida had this to say for herself:

“What are we doing here, you ask? Reading up on the tengu’s course of business of course. Don’t worry too much about what we think though, all our observations are for our master to evaluate. You shouldn’t be too surprised if Master has more up her sleeves in terms of ‘trials’ for you all. If she decides it, she could just take over your jobs of controlling information! They would probably be better for everyone involved, wouldn’t it?”

After disappearing from the hanataka’s offices, the pair continued to make sporadic appearances throughout the area. Since then, their trail has gone cold. They have implied, on multiple occasions, having intentions to further threaten the tengu lifestyle in order to test us, not just with crude displays, but with ploys to attack our hierarchy’s network of information.

Should that come to pass, I recommend all tengu to be observant, not only of each other’s backs (literally) but critical of any news you might hear that regards our own people. So long as we do this, it will be trivial to counter and neutralise anything the secret god might hope to do to undermine us.

(Aya Shameimaru)

* * *

By the time Aya woke up in her bed, it was late in the afternoon. Pulling the occasional all-nighter was also part of a reporter’s routine, even if it wasn’t the healthiest one. At least she knew by the time she woke up, the Bunbunmaru’s extra edition would have gone to print and reached the eyes of her fellow tengu.

The article was the result of Aya spending most of the night following around Mai and Satono, photographing them as they invaded various restricted spaces belonging to the tengu and simultaneously squeezing out multiple interviews from them while also minimising whatever damage they might cause. 

Mai and Satono had disappeared entirely after vacating the hanataka’s premises. That was slightly concerning to Aya, but she was fairly confident that they simply went home once their business was finished, likely on the lookout for the newspaper that Aya would be producing about them.

Most of the article was written on the fly, and Aya brought the finished work directly to the printing press once she finished, where fortunately there happened to be yamabushi tengu still around that late. It was morning by the time she went home to get some much needed sleep, though not before reinforcing the lock on her door and applying some magic seals around the interiors. The dancers may have been helpful to her the previous day, but that didn’t mean Aya wanted them or anyone else coming in and out of her house as they pleased.

Aya normally preferred to hand-deliver extras or other issues she was particularly satisfied with, but she was so tired that she decided to simply leave the copies to the tengu’s mailing and delivery system, and opted to just head straight home to sleep.

When Aya woke up, she could tell it was well-past noon by the light seeping in through the windows, and slowly got up. It was as good a time as any to go out and see what kind of waves her latest article is making in society... after a late breakfast and some cleaning up.

She had been up for only a few minutes before she heard a knocking on her door, followed by a familiar voice.

“Heeeeey! Aya! Are you home?” Hatate called out. Aya made herself as presentable as she could before opening the door to see her fellow reporter standing there. “You really pulled something cheeky with this rag of yours today.”

“I thought most people say ‘hello’ before prying into business?” Aya said, now awake enough to give an amused smirk. “You want to come in?”

Hatate nodded, and entered the house. “Imagine my surprise when I heard a certain rival of mine submitted a story to the press before the sun even rose. I had a good feeling about what it was about before I even read it.”

“So I take it people are talking about my latest extra already?” Aya asked, as she took a seat on a char. “Tell me about what people think about it.”

“Oh, well... I don’t actually know.” Hatate pulled up a chair by the desk beside Aya, and pulled out her camera. “Once I heard about it, I just used my thoughtography to read the article. Once I did, I came over here, so I haven’t really talked to anyone else.”

“I should have known...” Aya was disappointed, but also wasn’t too surprised. “I suppose I shouldn’t count on a shut-in to inform me about the public’s opinion.”

“Hey! Just because I have a convenient way to know things before anyone else-”

“I was just joking.” Aya wasn’t joking but she wasn’t feeling like making fun of Hatate too much right then. “What did _you_ think of it, then? I assume you were coming over to tell me how impressed you were.”

“More like ‘concerned’... You’re not helping those backdoor weirdos sneak around our territory, just so you can get a scoop out of them, are you?”

Aya almost looked disappointed at that question. “Were you only coming over to accuse me? Not even a hint of praise for my work…”

“It’s only natural I’d think that! I mean, the other day you were more bummed about that decree than any of us. It stands to reason you might be petty enough to go against the daitengu’s orders and go looking for those servants anyway.”

“Their decree was more of a ‘suggestion’ than an ‘order’... And also I didn’t go looking for those two, they actually came to me because they wanted a story about themselves to circulate. What kind of reporter would I be if I turned away a scoop that literally showed up at my doorstep? I couldn’t just ignore them then.”

“They showed up at your house...?”

“Well, it’s more like they abducted me, but that’s beside the point.”

“Um, if you say so...” Hatate wanted to ask for an elaboration, but there was enough on her mind already. “Although, I can’t help but judge them if you were their first choice for a reporter to go to.”

“Now what’s that supposed to mean? There is precedent for them coming to me! I have faced off against their master before, remember? Not to mention I was representing all tengu at the time-”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, you said all this to me already.”

“Point is, once they showed up in front of me for the second time that day, I simply had to write about them. You sounded like that’s somehow surprising to you?”

“I mean… The context this time is a little different though. Plus, Momiji told me about your conversation with the daitengu the other day.”

“So wolves like to gossip too, huh… So, what are you worried about, exactly? ...Could it be you’re concerned I’m in over my head?”

“Your words, not mine.” Hatate wondered for a moment how to best phrase her words. “ I just wonder if I should know ahead of my time if my rival has gone and intentionally ticked off the big shots. If so, I’m going to have to not associate with you for a while.”

“What? You would really just abandon me if it comes to that, huh…” Aya said, bringing a hand to her chest in feigned shock.

Hatate stared at Aya for a moment, but wasn’t able to read for what she was looking for. She leaned back and sighed. “I don’t get you, like, at all. Last time you dealt with this Matara-jin character, you said you intentionally left out information she told you about the four seasons incident, because you knew her real intention was to make an indirect threat to the tengu. You said something about how you didn’t want to be her tool.”

“Right, right, that is all correct. She wanted to make use of my newspaper to send a message to all tengu, which I did not appreciate in the slightest.”

“But today you’ve gone and done exactly that, and she didn’t even ask you this time! In fact, the daitengu told everyone specifically _not_ to bother looking into it. Seeing you go against the big shot’s wishes like this was a bit of a shock to me. I know you might complain about your bosses the same as anyone else, but I always thought you were particularly big on ‘respecting the ranks’, the kind of thing that comes with being an ancient fogey like you.”

“Those qualities aren’t just things that go hand-in-hand with age, you know? ...But they are all mostly true when applied to me.”

Hatate raised an eyebrow. “What, you mean being old?”

“I mean respecting the hierarchy. Or rather, what I respect is what us tengu have built on our own over the centuries. ...Why am I even correcting you, you know what I meant.”

“Yeah, I did.” After getting that snipe out, Hatate addressed Aya more earnestly. “So then, did it really tick you off that much when the daitengu told you that you couldn't write a story about this, so much so that you went out and did it anyway out of some rebellious streak? I would have thought that kind of pettiness was only reserved for ‘fledglings’...”

“What is with these attacks from all directions? You can’t call me both ‘old’ and a ‘fledgling’ in the same conversation!”

Aya did find herself thinking about it again though, her reason for writing this article in the first place. Certainly, her dedication to reporting every truth that she came across played a part of it, and she would be lying to herself if she didn’t think pettiness had something to do with it as well. Past all of that though, she also hoped to prove a point to the daitengu, even if she knew the chances of changing their mind on anything was always low.

Aya didn’t really feel like voicing all these thoughts right then and there though. “I just did what I feel like any tengu would and should do.”

“I think you have a very specific idea of how a tengu should act that not everyone agrees with…”

“Even if others disagree, I still have to-”

Aya is cut off when she hears yet another knock on her door, this one a bit more vigorous.

“Hm?” Aya mused she got up to answer the door. “I sure have been popular lately.”

Aya opened the door, and was met with an ever-serious Momiji.

“Ah, so you are home.” Momiji sounded just as serious as she looked. She was just slightly out of breath, indicating that she rushed over here. “Are you aware that-”

“Wait, wait, let me guess.” Aya interrupted, smirking at Momiji. “You came right over because of the Bunbunmaru's latest shocking extra, and you simply had to poke at the mind of the reporter behind it as soon as possible, right?”

From further inside the room, Hatate was rolling her eyes. “I hope you don’t think I was giving that impression when I showed up earlier.”

Meanwhile, Momiji just stared at Aya in confusion. “What? No. I… Oh, good afternoon to you too.” Momiji offered a quick and polite bow to Hatate before addressing Aya again. “I don’t know anything about an extra, from you or otherwise.”

“That’s no good, Momiji. You’ll be left behind if you don’t keep up with the news.”

“You’re the one who hasn’t been keeping up with news!” Momiji said back, annoyed.

“...Okay. ‘No, you are’ is a steep decline in the quality of barbs I expect from you.”

“Are you aware that you received a message today requesting your presence?”

“Oh… I did? I haven’t checked my mail today.” It was a natural result of having woken up less than an hour ago, but Aya didn’t feel like admitting that part. “Do the white wolf tengu need my consultation?”

“The request wasn’t from us. It came from the daitengu.” Momiji paused, hoping the seriousness of the subject would sink in. “They sent a message to you early in the morning. When you didn’t show, they sent for me since I am unfortunately considered to be one of your acquaintances. They want you to see them immediately.”

“Was the ‘unfortunately’ part really necessary?” Aya didn’t immediately think much of that right away… but Hatate immediately jumped to her feet in alarm. 

“They’re asking for Aya?! It’s gotta be about the article they didn’t want her to write, right? Oh my gosh, they totally are ticked off, after all!”

“Why are _you_ looking so anxious?” Aya meanwhile, remained nonchalant. “You’re not even the one they’re asking for.”

“Why aren’t you?! Being called in by the big shots is basically us worker grunts’ worst nightmare!”

“Those aren’t always the only reasons they call for people, you know. The higher-ups are more relaxed than you would think. I bet even Lord Tenma would be happy to share a drink-”

“Uh, if I may.” Momiji cut in, also sounding more nervous about the matter than Aya did. “I’m not privy to the details, but the daitengu definitely did not sound like they were just interested in a friendly conversation with you. It sounds like they want to address something urgent about you.”

“That’s the literal worst case scenario!” Hatate was pacing about at this point. “Is she going to get kicked off the mountain?! Aya, are you going to get kicked off-”

“Would you relax?” Aya said, half-amused and half-annoyed at Hatate. “Everything they do and say sounds urgent by default, they can’t help it.”

“Aya, I want you to know…” Momiji suddenly placed a hand on Aya’s shoulder. “We’ve had our differences, but I would never wish for you to incur the wrath of those at the top of our hierarchy. If worst comes to worst, I want you to know-”

“Good grief! Would _both_ of you relax?” Aya looked between the frantic Hatate and somber Momiji. “I am going to go see them for this apparently urgent matter, so please do not start mourning for me in the meantime.”

Despite Aya’s words, neither appeared to relax, but they at least ceased with the pessimistic words for now.

“Hatate, I need you to step out so I can get ready. Momiji, tell them I will be on my way.”

“I’m not going back to them to see them again before you do! I’ll accompany you to make sure you actually show up…”

“You could at least _pretend_ it’s for my sake…” Aya turned around and walked deeper into her house as Hatate exited at the same time, though she addressed her fellow reporter one more time. “It’ll be fine, alright? The daitengu and I all have a long history together.”

“Sure, but I also know you have a long history of antagonising everybody you meet.” Hatate said, not feeling reassured. “...Try not to push it with them, okay?”

“Sure thing.” Aya replied before Hatate left, closing the door behind her. Aya then let out a small sigh as she mused to herself. “...Too late for that, I already got all my ‘pushing’ done.”

* * *

Aya’s second visit to the administrative building that week involved a lot less fuss than the first time. After giving her name at the management counter, there was no waiting whatsoever before she was allowed to pass further inside.

Aya entered through a door at the end of a hall, leading to a large open room. It was a room used by the higher-ups to discuss and debate important matters until a unanimous decision was made. The mat along the floor was a finely decorated texture, and the seats around the room formed a partial circle shape so those seated would be facing everyone else.

It also had the effect that those who entered the room who were to be met by the higher-ups, in this case Aya, would stand in the center of the room so they may be visible to all of them at all times.

All around Aya were the daitengu, the large, imposing figures in robes that trumped her height even from their relaxed positions. Their eyes, hidden by intricately painted masks, were now all looking towards her. Whether it was with scrutiny or some other emotion, she could only guess.

“It’s an honour to be called upon.” Aya said with a bow, facing forward the whole time. She could put names to each of the beings in front of her, but when they were collected like this, Aya only saw them as the one unit, a force of authority rather than individuals. As such, when she spoke to them here, it was always to address all of them at once.

“Shameimaru.” A hoarse voice from behind one of the masks was the first to address her. “It’s rare for you to be late.”

“I apologise for not answering your call sooner. Once I heard my presence was desired, I rushed over as soon as possible.”

As Aya explained, she made sure her tone carried just the right amount of politeness and reverence, as every tengu knew to do around their superiors, even if Aya tended to be more selective of when she chose to speak like this than most.

“I already know the reason you summon me is because of my most recently published work. I expected it to raise concerns, and I am here to answer any questions you may have before you decide our next course of action.”

There was a pause in the air, with subtly shifting positions from those in front of her. It was enough to make even Aya wonder if she said something strange without realising.

“You misunderstand.” That same hoarse voice said. “We do not have questions for you, only an instruction.”

“I see. What can I do for you, then?”

“We want you to retract your most recent article.”

“...Retract?” Aya almost thought she might have misheard. “You mean, take back what I wrote?”

“...You are familiar with what a retraction is, yes?”

“Of course I am, I just…!” Aya stopped for a moment to regain her composure. “...Why? Have you read it? It tells of how those servants could back up their talk after all, and-”

“I’m surprised, Shameimaru, by how easily you’ve fallen for their ploy.”

“I... don’t follow.”

“In case you forgot...” From the side, the daitengu in the blue mask spoke to Aya, just the slightest hint of condescension in their tone. “...I told you myself that acknowledging the absurd idea that this secret god and her underlings could threaten our great network is the last thing we needed to waste our time doing.”

“I hadn’t forgotten at all.” Aya replied, in her most serious tone. “But since that time, I have discovered these threats are not entirely empty. Those servants from the backdoor showed me in person, which I documented in my paper.”

“You have acted exactly as they have wished you to do so. You have failed to consider the ramifications of your actions. Such a story would only spread an unwelcome idea among the tengu, the exact idea they used your newspaper to spread. Now we have to stop it.”

“ _This is ridiculous._ ” Aya wanted to say, maybe even shout.

”We know you were acting in the best interests of the tengu, so we are willing to let it slide that you purposefully went against our specific instructions to ignore the matter.”

Oh right, Aya just remembered that from the daitengu’s perspective, it looked like she purposefully decided to do the exact opposite of their ‘suggestion’ on the same day they gave it.

“Once you’ve undone this error, there will be no further issue.”

“You really think this was an error…?” Aya dared to look between the supposedly great and wise beings before, hoping to find anything other than the unyielding apathy in their dispositions.“I… simply cannot agree with that.”

The only mistake Aya knew for certain she had made, was leaving it up to unsaid assumptions that she and her superiors were all on the same page. This was a good time as any to make sure all her honest feelings on the matter were put out there.

“I am no stranger to others trying to manipulate my newspaper for their own benefit, but this story is more than just that. These outsiders appeared and dared to propose an unpleasant truth, so it is only natural that us reporters would investigate and counter with our own truth. Doing this reminds all tengu everywhere that not only are we willing to prove our great knowledge or wisdom, but that we always come out on top!”

So far, Aya’s audience just stared at her as she spoke passionately. This was a good sign, she thought, since it probably means they are thinking about what she’s saying.

“So please, I ask all of you to reconsider, and trust that the readers will take from it the truth that they’re meant to.”

There was yet another pause before one of them spoke again. “Shameimaru, you have always served the tengu with efficiency and conviction throughout its history. We hope that you may continue to contribute for a long time to come.”

“...Thank you.” Aya only took this as a further good sign, that perhaps she had changed their minds.

“That is why we summoned you personally today, as a courtesy to you. The truth is, we have already made our decision on what to do with your article.”

“I… I realise that, but even so, I have to implore you to-”

“No, I mean long before you came here, we already instructed the yamabushi to pull your extra from the press.”

“What-” Aya’s jaw dropped, and she didn’t manage to pick it back up as they continued.

“We had a suspicion about what your suddenly-submitted extra today would be about, after your questions the other day. The deliveries were stopped before reaching fifth avenue, and delivered copies returned.”

“I… but...” Aya was flummoxed. It was now entirely possible that her extra never reached the eyes of anybody other than Hatate before it was suddenly sent back to the press and probably shredded.

Although slightly more concerning than that was the fact that a newspaper being forcibly receded like this was extremely uncommon, and was not something that went unnoticed by the general public. Lots of tengu were going to wonder just what kind of vulgar tripe the Bunbunmaru was trying to publish before having to be pulled by the daitengu themselves.

The daitengu, apparently aware of this, even raised that exact point. “We realise such an action is going to reflect very poorly on you, and leaves a black mark on a reporter’s name which the press will not forget on their own. However, if you publish a retraction and take back what you’ve written as soon as possible, then this will wash over for you much more easily.”

Aya’s lips quivered, fighting the urge to point out how the daitengu’s ‘courtesy’ was just letting her personally know that her contributions only mattered when they decided it did.

“It seems like I don’t have much choice, otherwise...” Aya finally said. “And I can’t change any of your minds on this?”

When the next daitengu spoke, Aya could have swore from the tone that it sounded like her question had amused them. “We wouldn’t be the absolute authority of the tengu if we did not have conviction in our decisions. If you find yourself having doubts still…”

“Then I simply have to remember it is your judgement, and so it cannot be wrong. I remember.” Aya said, dryly.

“...We wish for you to return to regular business after this blunder as soon as possible, so I recommend you be fast about it. You may take your leave.”

“Of course… Thank you, for your courtesy.” Aya forced herself to say, before she turned around and briskly left the room, and soon the building entirely.

After Aya made it several steps outside, she came to a stop by some trees and looked up to the sky. She felt lightheaded, probably from how much frustration was bubbling in her. Several thoughts quickly flashed through her mind about what she wanted to do at that very moment, among them were things like flying straight up and never stopping, or let out the loudest shout she could possibly give.

Aya closed her eyes and took a deep breath… and then threw her fist right into the tree beside her, the bark’s wood shattering where the punch impacted.

She might still do those other things she thought of later, but for now she settled for leaving the area and heading elsewhere.

* * *

Not long after Aya had returned to her house, she went to pack several things, mostly her journalist’s essentials, into her satchel. After a quick bit of tidying up around the place, Aya exited her house and locked the door behind her.

Aya had only taken a few steps down the road from her house before spotting Hatate heading towards her direction. “Aya! Hey!”

“This is the second time today you’ve come to see me.” Aya said, with her usual friendly smile. “It makes me wonder if you’re looking to make me your next scoop.”

Hatate stopped in front of Aya, a serious expression on her face. “I came because I was curious how it went with the daitengu. Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s really nosy of me to come all this way to bug you about that, but I couldn’t stop wondering.”

“Oh, I don’t mind at all! If I admonished you for being curious about another’s troubles, I would probably be a hypocrite.”

“Good point. I feel less bad now.” Hatate then glanced down to the satchel that Aya was carrying, then she further noticed that Aya was walking away from her house. “Are you… going somewhere?”

“Yes. I’m stepping out for a bit.”

Hatate looked over Aya, before gasping. “Wait, oh my gosh, did they actually do it? Have you been kicked off the mountain!? Momiji always thought it’d be because of something more personal…”

“I haven’t been kicked off! ...Wait, how often do you two discuss the ways I would be kicked off the mountain?”

“Uh, it comes up sometimes…” Hatate half-heartedly explained before composing herself. “So then, nothing really dire happened when the big shots summoned you?”

“Depends on what you mean by ‘dire’...” Aya glanced aside, unable to help a frown as she recalled the earlier conversation. “...They want me to write a retraction, taking back everything I said in my extra today. Until I do that, my name has basically been blacklisted by the press.”

“Oof, that’s... Well, actually, all things considered… That’s actually kind of lenient, isn’t it? It’s probably because you’re an old fogey like they are. If any other crow pulled what you did, I’m pretty sure their feathers would get plucked!”

“That has never happened to anyone. ...And how is this lenient?! They’ve completely forced me into a corner. Despite the ever present facts in their face, they still have no trouble just refusing to acknowledge any truths they don’t like!”

“Look, you know I’m always ready to whine about our bosses too-”

“Clearly not nearly as ready as you should be…” Aya said with criticising eyes, though Hatate didn’t pay that any mind.

“-But you kinda did literally went and did the exact opposite of what they asked us to do.”

“Bah. I shouldn’t expect a shut-in fledgling to understand the importance of taking risks...”

“Okaaaay, somebody’s clearly grumpy.” The relative lack of humour in Aya’s voice wasn’t lost on Hatate. “...So I take it you already wrote that retraction, and you’re headed to send it in?”

“Hardly! I’m in no mood whatsoever to write something so unpleasant.” Aya said, then patted her satchel. “I’m packed because I am off hunting for scoops outside the mountain, like I usually do.”

“Oh. But… is this really the time?”

“It’s the perfect time. I am taking a break from this society, and I want to focus my thoughts on literally anything else right now.”

“How privileged of you, that you can just ‘take a break’ when you feel like…” Hatate said, a little incredulous. “But is it really a good idea to put off that retraction though? I figured you wouldn’t want to let any gossip about you linger for longer than necessary.”

“Even if my fellow tengu are being unappreciative, Bunbunmaru still has a readership in the rest of Gensokyo, so I think I will focus on providing scoops for them for a little while. Perhaps for a few weeks, or maybe even months. I can also use my own printer instead of the yamabushi’s presses.”

“Are you talking about that copy machine in your house? I thought you hated using that thing because it eats paper all the time and even spat in your face once.”

“Our jobs sometimes require hard choices! For the foreseeable future, Bunbunbmaru is a non-tengu-sanctioned passion paper. Well, it’s always been a passion of mine, but you know what I mean.”

“I get it, though you’re still not convincing me this hasn’t all been out of pettiness.”

“Maybe it is, who can say. ...Anyhow, I’m sorry to say you’ll have to find a different fellow spoiler in the meantime.” Aya said apologetically as she began to walk past Hatate.

“Are you kidding?” Hatate smirked at Aya. “Despite how much the big shots might screw you over, I know you couldn’t stay apart from this community for long.”

Aya stopped, and turned to Hatate with a raised eyebrow. “And what makes you so sure of that? Maybe one day I’ll really get tired of all this and leave for real.”

“That doesn’t even make for a good joke. The only reason you cause as much trouble with the big shots, and that you pry as much as you do about how the other tengu do things, is because you care more about our society than anyone else.”

Aya blinked at Hatate for a few moments. Her first thought was to be happy for the compliment, but she found herself feeling conflicted on it. “...That’s a shockingly charitable interpretation coming from you of all people. I wonder though, if it’s really a good thing that I don’t ever get fed up with how things are.”

“I don’t know, I’m just stating an obvious fact that any reporter worth her salt could observe. I can’t really relate though, I already tend to feel like I’m fighting the rules all the time. ...Sorry your latest story didn’t work out though, I thought the actual writing was a little better than your average.”

“Not even the daitengu can make me regret publishing a well-researched and documented scoop. ...I do still want to take a break from all this before I force myself to write lies.”

“Write lies?”

“Saying that I take back what I wrote in today’s extra. That would be a bold-faced lie.”

“Oh, right.” Hatate said, glancing aside. “Because you only print the truth, right?”

“Exactly. What they are asking me to do has only brought turmoil inside me. Until I can bring myself to get over that, I’ll be doing business elsewhere. ...I’ll expect Kakashi Spirit News to be hard at work too in the meantime.” Aya waved goodbye and took her leave.

“That goes without saying!” Hatate exclaimed as Aya took off… before quickly adding one more thing which she shouted. “I won’t lose even to your non-sanctioned rag!”

“Sure, sure!” Aya shouted back without turning back as she made her way to the outskirts. The day was still fairly young, so she was optimistic about finding a new scoop to focus on somewhere in Gensokyo.

* * *

Elsewhere, in the land of endless doors and shifting planes, were two beings contemplating recent events. Although most doors in the Land of the Backdoor led to entirely different realms, a few of them actually led to ‘rooms’ with walls and floors of their own. Inside one of these rooms, with a carpeted floor and ornately-decorated walls, were where the dancers were idling.

“Say, Mai, it sounds like Miss Tengu’s paper didn’t pan out. Her bosses just put a stop to it because they didn’t like what it implied about them.” Satono said from the luxurious reclining chair she sat in. She was reading the latest Bunbunmaru extra, which she managed to grab a copy of before they were all shredded.

“Geh, that’s disappointing.” Mai commented from an equally lush chair beside Satono, while fiddling with the camera the latter had picked up. “I thought being featured in a newspaper almost sounded fun, too.”

“I did too! I’m pretty sure a story about us is way more interesting than whatever garbage all those tengu normally write about anyway.”

“Right, and even the two of us can come up with better ideas for ‘sensational’ stories than them.” Mai said as she mindlessly removed and replaced the camera lens over and over, before suddenly smiling to herself. “...In fact, I just got an idea!”

“Ooh? It’s rare when inspiration strikes you! But actually, I think the same idea just hit me too.” Satono said, grinning. “Tell me what’s going on through your head first though.”

“If that crow tengu wasn’t able to make a newspaper that could make waves like we wanted, then we should just try and do it ourselves.”

“Oh, that is exactly what I was thinking too! Inspiration is stirring within me as we speak.”

“Really? Let’s brainstorm then!”

The two continued to chatter and conspire in privacy, with growing excitement and increasingly daring proposals shared between them...


	5. Chapter 5

Despite Aya’s declarations about how there is always material waiting to be found across Gensokyo, it wasn’t as if scoops were going to simply fall into her lap. Without any actual plan or goal in mind, Aya simply wandered from place to place, badgering people and listening in on gossip in the hopes of finding something interesting to write about. 

In the past few days, she had visited the kappa in their hideout, bothered various youkai and minor gods along both the mountain and nearby forests, and even ended up picking fights with some fairies by a lake, which was never productive towards anything.

Over the course of her very long career as a reporter, Aya knew very well that making articles and finding scoops for her paper required patience, and sometimes there were simply dull spans of time with nothing noteworthy happening. After certain recent events however, she was really hoping to focus her thoughts and efforts on some kind of work as soon as possible.

That’s why, despite having written about her already only a short while ago, Aya decided to pay a visit to the red-and-white shrine maiden. Anything even remotely interesting that Reimu might be up to becomes newsworthy by default thanks to her role as Gensokyo’s keeper of peace. Failing that, perhaps Reimu would be willing to point Aya towards other interesting sources if the former was feeling generous or if the latter was pushy enough.

With the morning sun beaming overhead, Aya flew towards the Hakurei Shrine, overhead the torii and landed right on the stone path. She then cheerfully called out. “Hello! Is the shrine maiden home and free to be studied?”

Aya had not taken two steps forward when the huge, glowing anti-reporter talisman came flying her way.

“Woah...!?” Aya immediately fell backwards, narrowly avoiding the talisman as it went over her in a loud flash.

Before Aya could even think to get up, Reimu was right on top of her, looming menacingly over the reporter and with a worrying amount of needles in her hands. “I finally got you! I sensed you coming this time…”

“Sensed me...?” Aya slowly tried to get up, but Reimu kept her pinned with a foot over her stomach. “I announced myself really loudly...”

“Yeah, well… I sensed you even before that! I couldn’t waste the chance to exterminate the youkai going around and calling me, how did you say it… ‘Menacing Shrine Maiden’, right?”

“It’s a very apt headline right now, isn’t it…?” Aya gave a weak chuckle, though Reimu clearly didn’t find it amusing. “I thought you would have forgotten all about that by now.”

“It was less than a week ago! Now, you’re going to change that article, or do I have to turn you into a pincushion?!”

“Has it really not even been a week? Wow...” Aya rubbed her head. So much had happened that she had forgotten fairly quickly about her last regular issue. “Well, sorry, but that story I wrote about you has long since gone into print already.”

“Seriously? In that case, I guess I’ll just go ahead with the pincushion plans…” Reimu said, rather indifferently as she prepared her throwing hand.

“Ah, wait wait wait! Let me just…” Aya slowly reached into her satchel, and pulled out a bottle of alcohol taken from her own kitchen. Before coming here, she had half-expected to need the bottle to coax Reimu into an interview or something, but she didn’t think she would be using it so quickly to save herself. “Here, take it! An offering, or a donation, whichever you want it to be.”

Reimu took the bottle in hand and examined it. It was a brand she liked, but she still looked between it and Aya with what Aya assumed was deliberation.

“...So, uh. Are we good? I think you’re going to leave a footprint on my shirt at this rate.”

“This is acceptable. If you’ve learned your lesson, you should get going.” Reimu coolly said before getting off Aya and turning around, so as to make her way back inside her shrine.

“Ugh, I learned something alright- Hey, wait a second!” Aya quickly called out, following after Reimu. “I didn’t come over to visit just for that!”

“Oh, yeah. I guess you still want something?” Reimu turned around, looking over Aya boredly. The shrine maiden was already prepared to move on with her day. “Why are you here, then?”

“I’m here because…” Aya started to answer, but then reconsidered.

There was a brief moment where Aya wondered if it would sound oddly suspicious, or uncharacteristic of herself, if she came out and said she was there for a scoop so soon after the last time she had bothered Reimu for exactly that reason. Would Reimu question why she was back so soon, perhaps even infer that something went wrong with her work lately and then ask questions Aya didn’t want to answer?

Then she remembered she was talking to Reimu, the most straightforward person she knew. “...I’m searching for material, as always, and the Hakurei Shrine Maiden is always a good potential source.

“Bah. You tengu only ever have a one track mind, don’t you?” Reimu grumbled, having no doubts about Aya’s reason.

“This one does!” Aya pulled out her notebook and pen, and walked up to Reimu with her usual affable smile. “Since I just handed you a gift, care to let me know if anything interesting has happened? Have you been smiting any troublesome youkai recently?”

“No, but I might be about to… Why can’t you bother the shrine maiden who lives on the same mountain as you?”

“Oh, but you’re consistently much more newsworthy than her, even when you try to be humble. It is as if news is attracted to you.”

“No, what I attract are always annoyances, like youkai reporters trying to write more weird stories about me! Does it even look like anything is happening around here?” Reimu gestures around to the peaceful shrine before turning her back to Aya again. “I need to clean up around the shrine, so if you don’t mind?”

“Oh, I don’t mind. Please just carry on your usual business, and I shall study your behaviour from a distance.”

Reimu stopped to glare at Aya for a moment, but then decided to leave it be for now. She assumed Aya would get bored and just leave on her own once it became clear nothing interesting was happening.

...That turned out to be an incorrect assumption, as Aya continued to simply hang around the shrine as Reimu continued her morning routine of tidying her shelves, airing out the storeroom, and sweeping leaves off the path.

It was while she was in the middle of sweeping the stone path when her irritation got the better of her. “Just how long… are you going to stick around?!”

Reimu looked over her shoulder towards Aya, who had been standing a short distance behind her. The reporter cautiously put up her hands. “Woah! I’m just being thorough in my study today. I’m not getting in the way of anything, am I?”

“Your very presence is a problem!” Reimu spun on her heels, and marched up to Aya with an all-too-familiar glare. “I can’t have a tengu loitering around the shrine. What would other humans think if they saw you? Are you trying to drive away visitors?!”

Aya lowered her hands to her hips, and wore a small smile that Reimu could only describe as annoyingly sympathetic. “Is that what you’re worried about?”

“Obviously! Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Then, tell me how often do you get human visitors, especially this early in the day?”

“You never know!” Reimu said, indignantly shaking her fists. “The shrine has to be ready and inviting at all times.”

“Well, that’s very admirable of you, but all my experience and documentation makes it easy for me to estimate the chances of anyone from the village visiting at this moment to be close to never. And it’s not as if you don’t already have a bit of a reputation of running a ‘youkai shrine’...”

“That’s not something you should just say out loud…” Reimu’s glare lowered, her resistance deflating.

“My point is that you don’t need to worry so much. Nobody is going to- Oh wait, somebody’s coming.” Aya said in slight surprise, her head turned towards the torii gate in the distance.

“What!?” Reimu exclaimed, and turned her head as well to see that indeed, a human from the village was making her way up the steps of the hill and heading towards the shrine.

“Well, I stand corrected-” Aya started to say when Reimu, acting on some kind of instinct, grabbed the reporter by the shirt with both hands, and threw her inside the shrine. Aya landed in a crumpled heap, blinking bewilderedly towards Reimu.

“Be quiet! You don’t exist right now!” Reimu exclaimed in a hushed tone before shutting the door. Aya wasn’t sure if it was a command for the reporter, or a statement to convince herself.

“W-what am I, a stray cat you’re trying to hide...?” Aya muttered to herself as she sat upright.

Since she was already here, Aya scooted closer to the door and tried to listen in on whatever conversation was happening outside. She still believed that the chances of someone from Human Village coming at this time of day just to pay their respects to the shrine maiden was miniscule, so there was probably an issue that required Reimu’s attention.

On the outside of the shrine, Reimu had welcomed the visitor with a practiced smile and greeting, but it turned out that indeed, the villager had come to ask for the shrine maiden’s help about a problem afflicting the village. Or at least, a possible problem. Aya only started listening in halfway through, but it sounded rather vague.

“...So there only _might_ be a problem?” Reimu asked. “You sound really unsure.”

“Yes, most of us in the village are unsure, actually. ” The villager said, her voice full of concern. “We’d rather not believe, but if there’s a chance it’s true, we wouldn’t know what to do about it.”

“Still, this sounds like it’s just rumours, right? I mean, ‘a wave of curses washing over the village’ sounds like something out of a children’s story. Everybody in the village believes this? Do you know how this started?”

“Most of us do, I think, at least in my neighbourhood. Honestly, I didn’t really catch all the details, I thought maybe the shrine maiden might know what to do, and could find out for certain.”

“I’ll head down to check it out myself, but personally, my intuition is telling me that it’s just scary rumours gone out of hand.”

“So you think there’s nothing to worry about?” The villager asked, sounding hopeful.

“It’s really likely that-” 

Just as Reimu started to say, the shrine doors behind her swung open, and Aya’s exuberant voice called out. “We won’t know for sure before taking a closer look!”

Reimu flinched, and the villager tilted her head. “Huh...? Is that-”

“I don’t know her!” Reimu turned around, ready to annihilate the tengu before slowly calming down upon seeing her. “...Oh. You...”

“Good morning! Pure and honest Aya, social awareness reportage writer at your service.” Aya, now suited in her suit jacket, cap and dress shoes, approached the villager with a friendly smile. One of the things she had packed into her satchel was her human disguise, which she had changed into in a hurry a few seconds prior.

Reimu was still uneasily glancing at Aya out of the corner of her eye, but she let out an internal sigh of relief. “Yeah, she’s… who she just said she was.”

“Oh, good morning. I think I’ve seen you around the village before.” The villager looked between Reimu and Aya curiously. “So... Why were you inside the shrine-”

“Sorry, there’s no time for small-talk. You said yourself something sinister is afoot in the village, right?” Aya said, before giving Reimu’s shoulder a few pats. “You need not worry for a moment longer, Miss. The shrine maiden is going to investigate this matter, top to bottom!”

“Don’t go speaking for me!” Reimu quickly moved in front of Aya, and addressed the villager herself. “...I’m going to investigate this matter top to bottom, so leave it to me.”

“Oh, thank you so much! I’ll let everyone know you’re on your way to handle it.”

The villager gave a bow of gratitude and left, leaving Reimu and Aya at the shrine. Aya was already giddily taking down notes.

“What are you looking so happy about?” Reimu asked.

“This is exactly what I was hoping for! I know I said you had a habit of attracting news, but even I didn’t realise how true that would turn out to be.” Aya then turned to Reimu and gave a reassuring wave of her hand. “Ah, of course you will have my full support as we investigate the rumours of this impending curse.”

“What do you mean ‘we’?” This was exactly what Reimu was worried was going to happen. “How do you expect me to work with a tengu tagging along?”

“Hm? You’re mistaken. Right now, I’m not a tengu, but social awareness reportage-”

“Yeah, whatever, you’re still the same annoying Aya. Like I was saying to that woman, this sounds like it’s just some rumours that got out of hand. I doubt it’s any kind of incident, let alone a ‘scoop’.”

“And like I said, we won’t know for sure without taking a closer look. Now get a move on, Miss Shrine Maiden, we need to get to the bottom of this!” Aya was already pushing Reimu from behind. “Go, go! Charge forward until you find the culprit like always and lift my spirits!”

“Ugh, alright, alright.” Reimu said resignedly as they headed past the torii gate. “What was that last part?”

“Pick up the pace!” Aya continued urging, her tone growing sincerely impatient. “Before our leads go cold!”

“I’m going! Stop pushing!” Reimu started hurrying towards the village now, with Aya close behind.

* * *

The Human Village was bustling in the late morning as it usually was at this time, with people moving to and fro to shop for groceries or to hang up their laundry. Out of the norm however, were various people along the roads chattering about apparent rumours. There was a variety of worried expressions about a wave of curses that would fall upon the village.

Reimu and Aya walked through the outskirts of the village, and Reimu spoke up. “A lot more people are talking about it than I thought, but nobody’s really sure what to think of it yet. Otherwise, they’d probably all be afraid to leave their houses.”

“Give it time.” Aya replied. “You let an interesting yet dreadful bit of information circulate among humans like this for a little while, and they will start scaring themselves more and more.”

“All the more reason for me to debunk these rumours as soon as possible then.” Reimu said with conviction.

“Don’t be in too much of a rush now! It’d be a shame if you spared these humans the excitement.”

“The ‘excitement’ of being scared for their lives? Oh yeah, I would _definitely_ feel bad if I spared them that chance.” Reimu said, with an exaggerated sway of her head in case her clear sarcasm wasn’t evident enough.

“You joke, but take it from me, the reporter closest to the village’s interests. The humans gossip and spread dire legends and rumours because they find mystery and danger appealing.”

“Yeah, maybe after the fact, but nobody _likes_ being bothered in the present, let alone being in danger.”

“Don’t be so sure. As long as there’s someone like the shrine maiden to protect them in the end, they can enjoy that thrill of having lived through an exciting story.”

“I already know where you’re going with this. So then, the humans here should be thankful to tengu like you, who go about creating thrills and trouble for them, huh?” Reimu asked, raising an eyebrow at Aya.

“I do not ‘create’ trouble, I search for it and then draw it out, so as to report on it for the sake of my readers. My newspapers happen to be one way for these humans to experience the fear and thrill they seek without having to put themselves out there.”

“There is no way anybody is saying that about your paper, even if they don’t know it’s written by a tengu.”

“I know what the people think and what they want, and it is my pleasure to provide for them!” Aya smiled to herself as she looked ahead to the village scenery that had become quite familiar to her over the years.

She let out a small sigh to herself, thinking about how she might have to become even more familiar with it while she was on her break from her society.

“Humans are probably going to be my main demographic for the foreseeable future…” Aya muttered to herself.

“What was that?”

“Just going over the facts we know so far to myself.” Aya replied quickly in her usual cheery tone. “It’s very little facts though, so let’s keep investigating.”

As the two continued throughout the morning, several villagers were happy to see the Hakurei Shrine maiden taking charge of the situation, as Reimu reassured them all that she was going to handle everything. Others only seemed to become more worried, believing her appearance to mean a confirmation of their fears, judging by the way they looked at her when she passed by.

No matter how each villager might have felt about Reimu though, they were consistently taken aback when Aya bombarded them with questions. This quickly became the routine of the pair as they progressed further down the roads.

“Yes, I’m looking into it right now. I won’t let any big curse or anything hurt the people of the village.” Reimu said to another group who were curious about what she’s doing.

Reimu then turned around, ready to move on, until she spotted Aya once again talking to a separate group of people. Reimu couldn’t help but be instantly worried.

“-And how does that make you feel?” Aya asked, notebook and pen in hand as she gave her current interview subject an intense stare.

“How do I feel? Well...” The villager in question had a hard time turning away from Aya’s eyes. “I don’t feel great about it?”

“Hmm... Nope. That’s not catchy at all. How about ‘it brings a visceral fear to the pit of my stomach’? Would you say that’s accurate to how you feel, even a little?” Aya hoped the villager would consider it accurate, since she was already writing down that line.

“Uh… maybe. Is it bad enough for that…?”

“Hard to say.” Aya replied, nonchalantly. “It could be nothing, or we could be in for dire times. How does that uncertainty make you feel though?”

“Okay, stop.” Reimu inserted herself between them and started pushing Aya away as she addressed the villager with a flat expression. “Thank you, we’ll be on our way.”

Reimu pulled Aya aside beside one of the sweet shops. Aya simply stared at the shrine maiden in bewilderment. “What? I really think I was getting somewhere with that one.”

“I’m going to have a harder time if you keep trying to make people afraid on purpose.” Reimu said, exasperated. “...What is with you today anyway?”

“I thought you would be familiar with that technique by now. I am trying to draw out a more remarkable emotion from within the interviewee. I’ve started putting more thought into these kinds of things since my rival gets on my case about making sure the quality of the writing is as good as the photos.”

“I feel like there’s an obvious agenda there, but that wasn’t my point.” Reimu rolled her eyes before continuing. “That was the fifth person you have gotten right up in the face of, and we’ve only been here for less than thirty minutes. I’m used to you being obnoxious, but even you’re usually a bit more subtle.”

“What can I say?” Aya simply shrugged in response. “I am feeling a little more excited than usual because I feel like I’m on the cusp of a scoop! It’s always a rush to be the first and only reporter on the scene.”

“Hmm…” Reimu narrowed her eyes and leaned in close, as if she was scrutinising Aya’s face. “I don’t believe you.”

“Um, what…?” Aya couldn’t help but lean back uneasily.

“You seem less excited to me and more… desperate.”

“...Desperate?” In a flash, Aya went from bewildered to offended.

“Yeah, desperate for something to write about. Would you say that’s ‘accurate’ to how you feel?” Reimu’s face was impassive, but her teasing tone wasn’t lost on Aya.

“I don’t recall the shrine maiden’s intuition extending as far as mind-reading.” Aya said, impassively.

“So you’re saying I’m right?”

“No, I’m saying you’re talking nonsense. We should get back on track, it sounds like all this talk of diseases and curses started from the farms on the west side of the village.” Aya talked just as quickly as she moved, heading past Reimu and towards the mentioned west side.

“I’m the only one ‘on track’ here.” Reimu muttered as she followed closely behind.

The two of them came across a woman working in a hurry to protect her crops with a tarp. Aya was the first to address her. “Excuse me, Miss! Is that really a sensible farming technique?”

“Huh? Oh, well…” The farmer looked between the tarp and then to Aya. “It’s unconventional, but it’s the best thing I can think of in case there’s an emergency today...”

“Speaking of…” Reimu said, stepping into view.

“Ah! Miss Hakurei! You came after all!” The farmer said, delighted upon seeing Reimu.

“Yes. Was… that in doubt?” Reimu asked, but quickly brushed off the thought. “...Uh, anyway, people around the village have been talking about how there’s some curse or plight about to wash over them or something. I’m trying to find out how all this talk started in the first place.”

“With support from the friendly human reportage writer, myself.” Aya chimed in, handing the farmer her business card.

Reimu simply continued. “So I asked around and it sounded like it started with the farmers around this area. Do you happen to know who was the first among you folks to mention it?”

“That was me, actually.” The farmer casually said. “I was the first one to spread the word this morning, I’m pretty sure.”

“Oh, uh, then where did you get the idea from? ...Please don’t tell me you just made it up.”

“Of course not! I don’t know if it’s true myself, but I read about it in a newspaper today.”

“Newspaper?” Both Reimu and Aya instantly stood to attention at that word.

Wait...” Reimu asked, and glanced out of the corner of her eye at Aya who looked just as surprised as she did. “It wasn’t a newspaper called the Bunbunmaru, was it? ”

Aya scoffed. “Obviously she must mean one of the third-rate, locally produced newspapers, because a publication like the Bunbunmaru wouldn’t feature something like-”

“No, that’s the one.” The farmer nodded. “Bunbunmaru, I’m sure of it. There was this extra this morning about how a wave of diseases and curses is going to spread over the village soon, and it recommended some really odd techniques to ward them off.”

“...You must be mistaken. Either that or you’re lying.” Aya said, failing to hide the accusatory tone in her voice.

“I should be saying that to you!” Reimu said to Aya, before turning to the farmer. “...Hey, give us a minute.”

Reimu pulled Aya aside and whispered to her. “What is going on here? Is this some stupidly elaborate prank of yours or something?”

“Of course not! I have no idea what this human is on about! Not only have I not written anything about ‘curses’ recently, I also haven’t delivered any extras today.” Aya pursed her lips, stewing over the meaning of this. “Though I can understand why you’d ask that. It seems unlikely how anyone could be foolish enough to mistake any other publication for my own.”

“Yeah, yours is _distinctly_ third-rate and full of nonsense.” Reimu wasn’t entirely convinced, so she turned back to the farmer, who had been watching them converse with confusion. “Hey, can you show us that paper you read this story from?”

“Sure, I still have it. I’ll go get it from my house.”

The farmer went into her house, and a minute later came back out with a newspaper in her hands.

“Oh, what is that supposed to be?!” Aya exclaimed, baffled when the farmer showed the newspaper, the front of it sporting the familiar Bunbunmaru logo.

“Um, it’s the newspaper? I’m not a frequent reader, but sometimes this paper talks about important things, and it’s true most of the time, right? So I- ….Ah!?” The farmer whined as the paper was snatched out of her hand by Aya, who began scrutinising it intensely.

“What is this? What is this!? Some kind of cheap forgery!?” Aya was practically agonising over the paper as she studied every detail. 

Reimu was hovering right over Aya’s shoulder, reading as well. “Still want to claim you had nothing to do with this?”

As Aya examined the apparent Bunbunmaru extra, several things became clear to her. The texture of the paper and the shade of the ink were identical to any paper printed by the tengu. Of course, the actual text itself was not only unfamiliar to her, but she could only describe the structure and style to be ‘crude’.

The details of the article talk about how the population of humans will be met upon by an immediate flood of misfortunate, diseases and curses due to an overwhelming presence of youkai malice, and the best course of action is for everyone to dance at the nearest rear door of a temple, to loudly beseech a generous god to ward off these misfortunes.

After several seconds in silence, Aya looked up and spoke to the farmer. “...Did you purchase this newspaper from Suzunaan?”

“No, actually. When I stepped out this morning, that paper was just lying on the road.”

“You mean it was left in front of your doorstep?”

“Uh, no, it was a bit strange. There was just a pile of about ten of them in the middle of the road this morning! We figured the papers were left there during nighttime.”

“Huh.” Reimu glanced at the paper as she spoke. “My first guess is that the reporter who writes this stuff just got really lazy when it came to delivering them. Do _you_ think she’d do that, Aya?”

If Aya heard Reimu’s sardonic question, she didn’t acknowledge it. After another second of stewing in her own thoughts, she quickly addressed the farmer. “Thank you for your time. The shrine maiden and I will resolve this matter. Let’s go.”

“Go? I haven’t finished- Hey, where are you going?!” Reimu called out to Aya who was already walking away briskly. Reimu quickly spoke to the farmer once more. “She’s the one following _me_ around, by the way.”

Reimu quickly caught up with Aya, who was heading over to the next house.

“Hey! Slow down! Are you fleeing from the scene of your crime?” Reimu asked, only half-joking.

Aya abruptly stopped, Reimu only managing to stop half a second before crashing into her, and turned around. Her face was scrunched up in distress.

“Uh… Aya?”

“ _I’m_ the one who’s had a crime committed against her!” Aya yelled out, holding the ‘Bunbunmaru’ extra up and crushing it in her hand.

“Yeesh! Not so loud…!” Reimu winced. Every human within vicinity was now looking in their direction. The two of them then moved behind a house before continuing their conversation. “I was just joking anyway. ...Mostly. Probably.”

Aya lowered the paper, and twisted it in both her hands as she spoke. “Sorry. It’s just… I think my head is going to spin. A counterfeit of my own newspaper! And it’s being believed to be the genuine deal by my readership! Absurd! Ridiculous!”

“I’m willing to believe that you didn’t write that. Still, I would have expected you to brush it off or something. You never act like you care even when people say bad things about your paper.”

“This is different, nowhere near the same level! This is a grave affront to my pride and joy, when I need it the absolute least! To have someone just produce fakes of my Bunbunmaru, filled with this rubbish and worthless libel! ...Why are you smiling?!”

“What? No I’m not…” Reimu said, trying and failing to hide her lips quirking into a smile. “...Maybe I just think the irony of you saying that is amusing.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Anyway, we need to go round up every copy of these fake extras!”

“That’s going to have to wait, because there's a far more pressing issue. I don’t know what’s going on with your paper, but if there’s a chance the story in it is true, then…”

“This is _not_ my paper, and nothing bad is going to happen. This article isn’t even talking about any real kind of threat.” Aya said, dismissively waving the crushed paper in her hand.

“And just how can you be so sure?”

“Because the ‘technique’ it recommends is just an old ritual called tengu-odoshi. Humans at temples would perform it in order to ward off the ‘curse’ that is the presence of tengus. This article is talking about that superstition, but without _mentioning_ that it’s just a superstition.”

“Huh...” Hearing that, Reimu felt a little more relaxed about the whole matter. “...Does that ritual work for shrines?”

“Hard to say. Have you _ever_ done a proper ritual?”

“Everything I do is proper, I’ll have you know.” Reimu countered. “...But if the threat from those articles isn’t real, then all you have to do now is let all the villagers know that. Tell them it’s a ‘fake’.”

“Um… I…” Aya’s hands fidgeted with the crushed newspaper in her hands. “...I would rather not do that if it can be helped.”

“What? Why in the world not?” Reimu asked, frowning at Aya. “The people here still aren’t sure whether or not something bad is coming. All you have to do is come out and confirm it’s nothing. Just write an article like you always do to explain it!”

“So you’re saying you want me to retract the statement in these papers…”

“I guess. What’s the big deal?”

“There’s no way it isn’t a big deal! Whether I simply take back the words printed in this fake article, or I admit that my newspaper was taken over by imposters, it’s a blow to my reputation I absolutely cannot take right now!”

“Oh come on, stop being so dramatic! Your paper’s been proven wrong before, hasn’t it? And you always bounced back annoyingly quickly, never caring much when people tell you off.”

“I appreciate that, but this time-”

“That wasn’t a compliment, I was criticising you.”

“-But this time is different! I’m trying to maintain what stable readerships I can right now.”

“Why? Are you on low sales or something? Have you ever cared about that? Wait, now that I think about it, how much do you make out of-”

“...Some stuff happened, okay? This has all come at a particularly bad time.” 

Aya hesitated for a moment, but decided since she was this far in, she may as well air out her issues to Reimu.

“I had a disagreement with the daitengu recently. The gist of it is they didn’t appreciate something I wrote, and want me to apologise for something I don’t believe was wrong. Until I do that, my own people’s press have put a black mark on my name. Rather than dealing with that, I’ve decided to take a break from my local community and am focusing on my other readerships, such as the humans. Of course, now it looks like my paper is facing a dire situation here as well...”

“Oh, wow… Even other tengu weren’t putting up with you?” Reimu was somewhere between amazed and amused, neither of which were a reaction Aya appreciated. “So does that have anything to do with these Bunbunmaru extras today, that you apparently didn’t write?”

“I have a good idea of who’s responsible for those, even if I don’t know the why or how. I’ll handle one problem at a time…” Aya sighed before she continued. “You might be lucky, you know.”

“Lucky?”

“Sometimes working in a group means you don’t get to have your way. It must be nice to answer to nobody but yourself.”

Reimu just stared at Aya, surprised for a second, then her expression shifted to incredulous. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No...? Why would I be kidding?”

“If you ask me, you care less about the ‘rules’ and what other people think way less than I do. I work with the role I’m given. You on the other hand, are always stretching and making up what your job even is, as long as it lets you do what you want.”

“What is that supposed to mean? I’m a traditional, model reporter, and am always acting to be the best example of that.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re the only one who thinks a ‘model reporter’ is someone who makes up the ‘truths’ in your paper.”

“I only ever report the truth.” Aya said, a line she has said many times before to Reimu, though this time she felt compelled to elaborate. “It’s just that when I believe in something, I want to make it come true if it isn’t already. If I think something could be more interesting, then I wonder why shouldn’t it be. That makes it more worth writing about.”

“No matter how else you try to phrase it, it always sounds to me like you just do whatever you want.”

“Well… Maybe that’s true too.” Aya shrugged before going quiet. While she’s sure Reimu is saying this to criticise her, Aya instead found herself wondering why, if she were truly the type to ‘do whatever she wanted’, was she letting herself be so constrained by the daitengu’s ultimatum?

“...Hey, I still need to reassure the villagers that everything will be fine. I don’t care if you don’t like it, hurry up and do something about it!”

“Now, now, public opinion will not be so easily swayed. Even if I were to write a new article explaining that this extra is false, that will just raise the question of which Bunbunmaru is legitimate. There will still be lingering doubt and fears about how accurate the talk of impending curses are.”

“It sounds like you’re just trying very hard to get out of saying your paper made a mistake.”

“My point still stands! The only one who can resolve the human’s unrest is you. Just go and tell them you’ll do some kind of shrine maiden ritual that will protect everyone.”

“What, you want me to do a fake ritual for a fake incident?”

Aya nodded. “It pains me as a pure and honest reporter to have to suggest such a deceptive tactic, but I think I can count on you to pull it off.”

“You really think I should just go and put on an act to the masses? That I would just stand there and tell _lies_ to people?”

“I don’t know.” Aya nonchalantly said. “Will you?”

“...Yeah, just give me a minute to come up with something.”

* * *

“Any and all calamities will be cleansed from here! This village is under the protection of the Hakurei Shrine!” Reimu declared to the gathered crowd in the middle of the village, before reciting a standard scripture aloud.

Reimu had reassured the villagers that no harm will come from whatever misfortune the morning’s newspaper implied. A simple light show and a few charms given out to the surrounding houses were enough to convince the crowd.

By the end of it, the villagers thanked Reimu before dispersing, all their worries alleviated. Reimu gave a few passing nods and glances, before walking away from the village’s center.

She soon came across Aya again, who approached her with a bundle of several dozen newspapers in her hand as she spoke. “That was really good! It should reassure everyone that you’re a proper shrine maiden again for a little while.”

“What do you mean a little while? ...Nevermind. What’s that you have there?” Reimu asked, glancing at the bundle of newspapers.

“While you kept the humans in the vicinity occupied, I searched the surrounding homes and collected all these fake Bunbunmarus. I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone holding on to these and believing them to be the genuine deal.”

“Wait, did you break into everyone’s houses for these? You were only gone for fifteen minutes!”

“I am very fast. I also didn’t leave any trace behind, if you’re worried about that.”

“I don’t know how to feel about this…”

“Well, how do you feel about that performance you just gave? You know, if you made it a frequent occurrence, you might stand to gather more consistent faith for your shrine.”

“No way, it’s a pain to come all the way out here, especially when I don’t need to. I still feel a little bad too. They were all so grateful for me just pretending to do something. It feels like I tricked them.” Reimu looked pensive for all of a second before throwing up her arms and smiling. “Oh well, what’s done is done. Now you can put in your paper about how the shrine maiden helped ease everyone’s worries today, right?”

“Wrong.” Aya replied, bluntly. “I won’t be writing about this.” 

“What? Why the heck not?”

“I mean, just think about the timing of it. I publish a headline of the shrine maiden resolving an issue on the same day as the article warning of said issue? Even the most unimaginative of humans are likely to assume we planned it together.”

“Are you serious?!” Reimu looked at Aya in disbelief. “You’re always putting the strangest things about me in your paper on a whim, but when I actually do something impressive, it’s suddenly no good for an article?”

“I thought you said you felt bad about tricking people!” Aya said, in equal disbelief.

“Yeah, but I already did it, so I figured I might as well deserve some credit for it!” Reimu huffed and pouted.

“Well, sorry. I have other business to attend to. I’m going to go get rid of these forgeries, and then make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

“You better. I don’t want to have to do this everyday.” 

“You can leave it to a tengu to investigate tengu matters, don’t worry.”

“So then, does that mean you’re going to go back home to talk with your tengu bosses? Your ‘break’ has been long enough that you’re ready to suck up to them now?”

“I’ll… figure out what I want to do when I get there. If things don’t go my way still, I’ll just work harder to show others the same truths I do. That’s what you said about me, right?”

“I only recall saying that you always just do whatever you want. ...Try not to land yourself in even more hot water somehow. Or do. I don’t know how you go about doing things.”

“Only I can know how I operate, but I do feel a bit more encouraged thanks to you. I am sure before long, things will be back to normal and I will once again be delivering my latest issues to your doorstep.”

“You don’t have to. Ever.” Reimu said in a dismal tone.

“Look forward to it!” Aya exclaimed, turning around and briskly taking her leave.

“I don’t want any!” Reimu said, already resigned to receiving many more unwanted papers in the foreseeable future. She let out a sigh and muttered to herself. “I should find out if that tengu-warding ritual works for shrines after all…”


	6. Chapter 6

Within the ever-twisting plains of the Land of the Backdoor, sat two of its inhabitants in an elaborately decorated room. Satono sat at an ornate table, humming to herself as she pressed at the keys of a typewriter. Having only started how to learn to use the device a short time ago, the words came out slowly since she liked to give each letter an emphasised press, and to take in the soothing sound of the keys clicking.

“How are you doing so far, Mai?” Satono asked, as she plucked the finished document from the top of the typewriter. “I just finished my fifth one. Do you think that’s some kind of milestone?”

“I don’t know.” Mai said, just as cheerily from across her table. A second typewriter sat in front of her, and she took a pause from tapping at the keys. “But if it is, then make it a double-milestone, because I just finished my fifth one too!”

“Alright! Between the two of us, we must be setting off some kind of record. By the way, do you know which headline we want to print next?”

“I don’t know that either! I do know that I feel like taking a break right now.” Mai stood up from her seat, and walked along the table. 

Spread out across the table were an assortment of papers with different texts on them, the results of all their ‘work’ so far. It was laid out in a neat grid-like pattern, not in any organised order, but just because it felt nicer to look at like that.

Having acquired a pair of typewriters used by tengus, alongside a cache of their supplies including paper and ink, the two of them have been having a leisurely time imagining the kinds of things that get put in newspapers and then seeing it physically manifest. Adding the stamps for the Bunbunmaru logo made it feel more authentic.

“These would all be pretty good.” Mai said, scooping up all the papers into a stack and then skipped towards another direction.

Satono leaned back in her seat and stretched her arms, feeling satisfied. “Yep. Between the two of us, we have too many good ideas. I don’t know why tengu need to spend so much time thinking just to come up with even one story.”

Mai laid down across a luxurious couch, legs idly kicking over the armrest as she shuffled through the papers in her hands. “I think I might understand why tengu think doing this is fun, though.”

Mai skimmed through the ‘articles’ they had created on a whim. Almost half of them were about spreading the knowledge and usefulness of rituals, inspired by their wonderful master, that would surely only enhance the lives of others while bringing glory to Okina.

The other half were headlines they simply thought would be interesting if people believed them to be true.

A headline about packs of youkai beasts intending to migrate into the nearby forest areas. Another headline detailing how the mountain territory of the yamanba has become haunted. And one more talking about kappa’s dams being overflooded due to rocks collapsing in their river stream. The last thing was even actually true thanks to Mai accidentally knocking over a rock structure when they were still exploring the mountain.

Mai hummed as she imagined the immediate effect that spreading any of these stories would have. This was exactly the sort of ‘news’ that would force its readers to take action, which was ideal for observing how a subject would react to something shaking up its routine.

More important than that though, it was just fun to put something off the top of your head to text, then watch another immediately take it as fact and act accordingly.

Satono felt the same way, though she had since found that physically working a typewriter made her start to arch after a while. She stood up to stretch her legs as well, and walked behind the couch to talk to Mai. “So you’re saying this is fun? It could be that replicating a crow tengu’s habits is making you think more like a crow tengu too.”

“Ew! That’s a horrible thing to say! Or are you just calling me a bird-brain!?” Mai laughed as she lightly smacked Satono with the bundle of papers. “I don’t think this kind of fun should be exclusive to tengu, anyway. ...We really do have too many good ideas, huh?”

Mai rolled onto her belly and shifted through the papers and their headlines a second time. Satono chuckled and climbed over the backrest of the couch, landing herself on the cushions with the side of her body, and nearly pushing Mai off entirely.

“Woah...!” Mai just barely managed to avoid falling off, and quickly readjusted now that they were both lying on the couch. “You’re taking a break too?”

“I just wanted a better look.” Satono said, getting comfortable. While Mai was holding the papers, her arms outstretched over the armrest of the couch, Satono reached out and shifted through the top of the papers with one hand. “I think… we should just use all of them right away! Why not, right?”

“Oh, good point! More news at once can’t be a bad thing.” Mai agreed. “I’m sure even that Shameimaru tengu will be thrilled about how much work we’re putting in for her.”

“You think so?” Satono wondered aloud as she rubbed shoulders with Mai. “I think she’ll cry because we’re doing more with her newspaper than she can even hope right now.”

“Ooh, I’d like that a lot more.” Mai said, grinning alongside Satono. “Now I don’t want to wait around. Let’s hurry and get these stories out there!”

* * *

“Let me in, let me in! This is of dire importance!” Aya called out as she knocked repeatedly on the door of the yamabushi’s printing building.

“Go away, Shameimaru!” The voice of an exasperated yamabushi tengu replied from behind the door. “We know you’re just here to annoy us because you’re on our black-list.”

“Incorrect! I am here to annoy you because I’m  _ supposed _ to be! I can explain further once you allow me to review your recent productions!”

“I don’t care for an explanation! Can’t you read the sign?!”

Aya kept knocking, and had been trying to get inside the building for most of the afternoon. The yamabushis had closed the doors, with a sign pasted outside explaining that they were busy with ‘maintenance’.

Aya wasn’t convinced though. “I know you folks only fix up your equipment once a year, and you already took a break for it last month! Lying about that kind of thing has got to be an offense that our superiors will care about, you know!”

“It’s not a lie! We’re dealing with… complications! Now go away!”

“I will write a scathing critique about you, use my own copier at home to make dozens of copies, and then hand-deliver it to all of your peers!”

“Was… that a threat? I can’t tell.” The yamabushi asked, confused. 

“My options are limited, give me a break!” Aya said, defensively.

Before she could resume her incessant knocking, she heard a different voice address her from behind. 

“What kind of inane nonsense are you getting up to this time…?” Momiji asked, preemptively exasperated as she approached Aya.

Aya turned around and spoke to Momiji with an urgent tone. “There you are! Didn’t I ask you to come over as soon as possible?”

“And I told you that I might make time once I was finished with my duties. You made it sound like it was important, but right now it just looks like you are harassing other tengu again.”

“I am trying to investigate! I told you about someone forging Bunbunmaru copies, didn’t I? The texture, quality of the paper, and inks used is identical to any other newspaper produced in this very building, yet they just ‘happened’ to be closed today and won’t answer my questions. A highly suspicious coincidence, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I can’t assume to know how the yamabushis operate. ...And to be honest, even after I read that ‘fake’ article you showed me, I didn’t really notice anything different from any other newspaper you write.”

“I cannot believe you.” Aya said, stern and annoyed. “Your eyes can see a thousand ri ahead, but you fail to spot such an obvious counterfeit right in front of you.”

“I don’t know the subtleties of newspapers, I’ll admit that.” Momiji said, not too troubled by ‘failing’ in this way. “Was there something you wanted me to do here?”

“Yes, I do.” Aya pointed behind her to the printing buidling’s doors. “I assumed ahead of time that they would not listen to my requests, so you should let them know as a captain of your squad that their operation may be compromised and needs to be investigated, lest a possible threat to all tengu go undiscovered.”

“...I  _ would _ do that if I was convinced it was true. I’m sure you believe it, but… It was only a few days ago that you were punished for being too eager, while claiming it was for the tengu’s best interests as a whole.”

“It  _ is _ true, and I was in the right then, and I am in the right now. ...Listen, I already know that those dancers are responsible. They are probably still running amuck in our territory. As an enforcer of our security, aren’t you interested in catching them?”

“Of course I am! Letting them slip in is a shame I still carry...” Momiji said solemnly. “...But what are you implying? You think those two intruders are hiding inside the printing building or something?”

“Perhaps they are! ...Okay, no, that is incredibly unlikely. However, I have to start somewhere, and this is as good a lead as any. But so far I’m being blocked by a  _ lying _ sign on a door! I’m not yet desperate enough to just force myself into a tengu establishment.”

“Well, it’s nice to know you’re at least  _ trying _ to avoid falling into more hot water…”

“Thank you. Now are you going to help me or.... Hm?” Aya trailed off when she heard the door behind her open.

“Hey…” The yamabushi tengu that had been shouting from behind the door frowned at Aya with a mix of irritation and uneasiness. “I heard most of what you just said… You’re saying some really strange things about our place of business, like how we might be housing intruders?”

“I never said that exactly, but I am speculating several different hypotheses.” Aya replied calmly. “I would greatly appreciate it if you helped me confirm or debunk any of them by letting me in.”

“I can debunk them right now! We are closed because we are handling a delicate malfunction with our equipment, and we don’t want any of you crows saying anything else just for kicks!”

“Kicks? I will remind you that a model reporter like myself, even while shunned by my own local establishments, only spreads information for the sake of-”

The door was closed again, and Aya heard the sound of it being locked from the other side.

“Now that was just impolite!” Aya exclaimed with a huff. “Maybe I really will write that scathing critique, if only to feel better…”

Aya turned around towards Momiji, who had been standing behind her and now had an astonished expression on her face.

“Momiji? What is it?” Aya blinked in confusion, before quickly looking over her shoulder. “Those two aren’t behind me again, are they!?”

“That’s not it. I... saw something, just now.” Momiji admitted in a shameful tone. “I must be letting you rub off on me. Hearing your ridiculous speculation made me curious, so while the door was open, I couldn’t help but to, well…”

“Ooooh! You used those thousand ri-seeing eyes of yours to peek inside the building!” Aya gave an elated smile. “Don’t worry. You’re so devoted to your duty that you can’t help but be curious. If anything, you were obligated to peek!”

“Don’t try to justify it! Hearing it from you just makes me feel worse! ...The yamabushi were serious about them having an equipment problem, though.”

“What? Seriously? No!” Aya groaned, shifting immediately from elation to disappointment. “So is one of their printing presses broken down or something?”

“One of their printing presses is  _ missing _ .”

Aya blinked at that for a few moments. “...Missing? You’re talking about those large machines that print all the paper, right?”

“Yes, obviously I know what a printing press is! There’s a big space in the line of machines where one should be, but isn’t there.”

“Okay, that… actually explains a few things.” Aya nodded to herself as she mulled aloud. “There’s really no adequate way to explain to other tengu how something like that gets misplaced, so it’s no wonder the yamabushi were hesitant to let me in. I’m sure they’re all scurrying around and trying to come up with a plan, because they certainly aren’t going to find it no matter where they search.”

“You mean you know where it went?”

“You should as well. It is completely obvious who took it, isn’t it? Those two are outrageous enough to want to pull off something like this, and I don’t doubt they could have found a way to do it with their capabilities.”

“Then let’s hurry and find them! On top of trespassing, now they’ve stolen from tengu as well.”

The dancers had already stolen a bunch of things from tengu before this point, but Aya opted not to mention that.

“I’m eager to put my blade to work on them. Where do we look?” Momiji said, clenching a fist in front of her.

“You’re finally taking this seriously! Unfortunately, finding them is a matter of waiting for them to make the next move. I’m keeping an eye on the Human Village when I can, but I could use some eyes on the mountain too in case they’re trying to steal every demographic I have everywhere...” 

It was an upsetting thought, that more of these papers were being spread elsewhere without her knowing. Not too long ago, Aya had hoped for some kind of distraction from her frustrations towards the daitengu… and ended up finding something far more distressing to worry about.

“Momiji! I need you to order your entire squad to keep a lookout for any sightings of Bunbunmaru papers in the wild!”

Momiji nodded. “I can do that. ...Although, that’s going to sound a lot like a roundabout plan from you to get my squad into reading your papers.”

“The last thing I want is for anyone to read anything those two are putting my name on. I just hope to establish some kind of pattern soon enough. I can only assume they are abusing their ill-gotten property to produce more mediocre forgeries as we speak!”

* * *

The whirring of the printing press as it spun it’s gears was noisy, almost overwhelmingly so to Mai and Satono at first. After playing around with the machine for a bit though, they had both grown attached to how it loudly worked and produced copies of their handiwork within seconds.

Instead of picking just one of their drafts to print in bulk, they simply threw in everything. By the end, they had a truly random selection of articles in their hands. Each headline now had wildly differing amounts of copies, but that was fine, since they were confident all their news would spread around regardless. 

Satono packed half of the rolled-up newspapers into a bag, while Mai took the other half and even took a moment to admire the pictures in one. “I’m so glad you found out how to get the photos out of that camera!”

“Me too! I was so surprised to find out it wasn’t just a toy.”

They stepped out of the room where they placed the printing press, and into the expanse of doors.

“Time to start our delivery run. I think that’s what you call this, anyway.” Satono said as she stood in front of one of the doors that was floating in the air.

“Remember to put on a smile, so that we’re delivering a good attitude along with the paper.” Mai said as she stood in front of a different door.

“Is that another rule you just made up on the spot? I can’t keep track with a professional like you!”

Satono opened the door, leading to a specific and remote part of Gensokyo… and then unceremoniously tossed in a few newspapers, before closing it again.

Mai did the same, ‘delivering’ the newspapers with haphazard throws to a completely different area in Gensokyo before closing it. She then pretended to wipe some sweat from her brow. “Another group of soon-to-be satisfied readers.”

“Don’t tire out now, we have a lot more readers to ‘satisfy’.” Satono said, jokingly, before slowly floating over to the next closest door.

“Oh, of course! I’ll reach into my inner reserves of stamina to make sure I deliver all of these.” Mai joked just as cheerfully as she took about three steps to the next door and repeated the process.

* * *

“Okay, I think that’s the last of the ones in this area…” Aya stated, or at least she hoped, as she dropped a large pile of newspapers onto the grassy floor. She stared down at the pile like it was something worse than garbage, the very sight of it appalled her.

It was now well into the evening, and with Momiji’s help, Aya had made what was probably good progress in rounding up the fake Bunbunmaru papers.

Momiji walked to the hill where Aya was, and dropped a pair of newspapers onto the pile. “I have to admit, when I asked the squad to ‘keep an eye out for newspapers’, I wasn’t actually expecting much.”

“Were those two the only ones you picked up? How serious are you about rounding them up!?”

“It’s only been a few minutes.” Momiji said, lacking Aya’s sense of urgency. “Did you already cover this entire section of the mountain?”

“I have. I swiped the ones that were just laying on the ground. The ones that had been picked up however, I had to make up some explanations about how these papers are production errors before taking them away.”

“That must have been a confusing conversation. So, have you figured out any kind of pattern or the like?”

“Let’s see, let’s see…” Aya crossed her arms as she pondered. “Ten papers were delivered to the kappa’s territory. Seven spread across the upper ravine. Five were dropped at the Moriya Shrine’s steps. Another five tossed along the yamanba’s paths… It was not fun explaining to those mountain hags why my papers or myself were there.”

“Really hope you didn’t violate any of our treaties with them while you were there...”

“I was also almost chopped up by them, but no treaties were broken. Anyhow, all of this leads me to conclude…” Aya paused, before her shoulders slumped forward in defeat. “...that there is no sensible pattern. They’re just dropping newspapers at random, as far as I can tell. I have no idea what’s going on in their heads...”

“They do sound like the types who don’t always follow what’s logical.”

“I should have expected that from two beings who proudly declare themselves as mad. My only option now is just hoping to catch them in the act, and getting the jump on them! The problem is that I have no idea what would be the best place to strike…?”

Aya was deliberating her next course of action when the familiar voice of a fellow reporter called out from above. “Heeeeey! What’s the situation?”

Hatate landed nearby, and eagerly approached Aya and Momiji. Aya snapped out of her thoughts, and turned to Hatate with an expression between surprise and worry. “Huh? Why are you here?”

“I asked for her help.” Momiji explained. “I thought her spirit photography might be helpful in locating that troublesome pair. I’m surprised you didn’t think to ask her first, actually.”

“There was a reason for that! I didn’t want any other crow tengu knowing about this!” Aya said, a pointed frown towards Momiji.

“Huh? Why not...?” Momiji asked, backing away just a little from the look Aya was giving her.

“Yeah, why not?” Hatate chimed in. “Those backdoor people are shaping up to be a really interesting scoop! Now that your own name has gotten so heavily involved, it’s not like you can cover the story yourself anymore without bias, right? So any article I write about this can’t spoil yours. Besides, you didn’t mind telling Momiji, didn’t you?”

“White wolf tengu aren’t known to gossip about crow businesses.” Aya said.

“Okay? Well, it’s not like I know anyone I would gossip about this to.” Hatate said casually, before quickly following up. “Do not make any ‘shut-in’ jokes!”

“Whatever. Whatever! It doesn’t matter. You can help me get rid of these mockeries.”

“Let me at least get a photo of them for reference.” Hatate said, picking up one of the papers and holding up her camera to it. “...Wow, this is surreal to look at. All the texture and logos are identical, but the actual structure of the text is nothing like how you write. It’s like how in a dream when something just feels off.”

“At least one person can tell! Thank you.” Aya said, before picking up another paper. “...Oh good grief, some of these have photos in them.”

“I noticed… and they’re awful.” Hatate commented, aghast at one of the articles that included a shot of some fairies in front of a forest scenery. “I could take better shots in my sleep!”

Momiji glanced at the photo in question. “It just looks like a normal photo to me?”

“You can’t be serious?” Hatate asked, baffled at Momiji. “The subject’s completely overshadowed by the background so you can’t even tell which is the focus at first, and the lighting is terrible since it was clearly taken under shade. Geez, Momiji. You can see a thousand ri ahead but can’t spot shoddy work when it’s right in front-”

“Okay, okay. I’ve had my eyes insulted enough times today, thank you!” Momiji made a mental note to never comment on photography or newspapers around a crow tengu ever again.

“I am going to make the both of them swallow a bottle of ink, followed by a raging tempest…” Aya said in quiet fury, twisting the paper in her hand and pulling until it ripped in half.

“Why are they doing this, anyway?” Hatate asked.

“Spreading misinformation. Ticking me off. Boredom. Pick one or all three, and you will probably be close no matter what.” Aya tossed the paper back into the pile. “Now can I get some help burning these?”

“What, all at once? That seems like a waste. You could probably save them for when it gets cold in winter, at least.”

“No. I want them all reduced to ashes as soon as possible. I am certain even more are being produced and spread across the land right this moment...” 

* * *

“Another group of soon-to-be satisfied readers.” Mai declared for about the third or so time since she and Satono started. “...Say, Satono, how long do you think it’ll take before these newspapers, you know, do stuff?”

“You mean, how long they’ll take before they make waves, changing the landscape with their information?” Satono asked, tossing another newspaper from her almost empty bag into another random door.

“Wow! That sounded really smart.” Mai said in awe.

“Thank you! I saw it on a plaque in one of the tengu buildings.” Satono nodded in thanks. “I don’t know, though. People have to read about the things in the paper first, then it has to circulate until more and more people believe it, and then people start acting out because of it. ...When I put it like that, it feels like it could take a really long time.”

“Gosh, it sure is a lot of investment to instill ideas in the public! As fun as it’s been, it might get boring if we don’t do something more…  _ immediately _ effective in-between.”

“Gosh, Mai, you can be so fickle! ...I can’t help but agree though. Producing news isn’t quite the same as being the news.”

“I wonder if that’s exactly the reason why that tengu likes doing both? She said something about how sometimes you have to make news with your own hands.” Mai pondered aloud as she stepped to the next door, opening it.

“Yeah, but that totally screwed her over, didn’t it?” Satono said, chuckling. “We’ll totally do it better than her though. In fact, as long as we’re talking about being news, I’ll just do this for future reference…”

Satono moved beside Mai, and brought an arm around the other’s shoulder. She then held out the old camera with her other hand and pointed the lens towards them.

“Ooh, what kind of headline will this picture be for?” Mai asked, smiling towards the camera.

“No idea, but it’ll probably be big if it’s a story about us.” Satono said as she pressed the button on the camera.

Mai giggled as she tossed the last of her bag’s newspapers over her shoulder and into the door behind her, and turned her smile towards Satono now. “I think I want to work on that story as soon as possible. The subjects seem really interesting.”

“Funny, I was thinking the same thing!” Satono said, grinning alongside Mai as she swung the door behind them close.

* * *

“Ugh… Ugh!” Aya groaned progressively louder to nobody in particular. She was pacing about at the top of a hill.

After having disposed of the earlier forgeries, Aya had nothing left to do but to enact her newest plan. Said plan was just to wait near one of the last known places the papers were found, and to hope for Mai or Satono to appear to drop more papers again. Calling it a ‘stakeout’ would have been far too generous compared to what it really was, which was just hopelessly sitting around and doing nothing.

With the help of Momiji’s telegnosis and Hatate’s thoughtography, they were able to spot a few occasions of newspapers appearing in faraway locations such as near Genbu Ravine or Misty Lake. Though Aya was grateful to know where to pick up more of the fake Bunbunmarus before anybody could read them, it didn’t lead her any closer to ‘getting the jump on’ the culprits. She suspected that it only took mere seconds for Mai and Satono to make their deliveries and then disappear without a trace.

Aya groaned again, hoping to make the universe itself know how bad she was feeling. She leaned against a large rock, and settled on scowling to herself.

“You look a little like me when my deadline is close.” Hatate said, walking towards Aya. “Which I should know means you must really be troubled.”

Hatate flipped open her camera, and searched ‘Bunbunmaru’ along with other associated keywords. She had been repeating this process once every few minutes, never knowing when she might spot the next appearance of the fake newspapers.

“No hits. It’s been quiet for an hour now, actually. Maybe they both just went to sleep.”

“I'll probably go keep at eye out at the Human Village regardless.”

“So are you planning on keeping an eye out… indefinitely? Like all night?”

“All night. Forever. There is the possibility this is just my life now. Either I am constantly chasing around the trail of the mediocre newspapers these two are printing my name on, or I give up and let them destroy all remaining credit I have as a reporter.”

“You don’t think you’re being a bit dramatic?” Hatate asked with a small smile. She didn’t believe Aya was as dispirited as she wanted to appear.

“It might just be in my nature to assume the most sensational possibilities at all times, I admit.” Aya sighed, the tone in her voice now just tired and vaguely irritated. ”Even assuming I manage to stop those two any time soon, I get to deal with my newspaper being known as the one that got hijacked by outsiders. On top of the presses black-listing my name until I apologise to the daitengu, it’s been  _ very _ turbulent for Bunbunmaru.”

“...You know, if you’re embarrassed about your rag getting hijacked- which by the way, I do find hilarious.”

“Just don’t laugh while I’m in earshot and you’ll be fine.” Aya said.

“My point is, I can just... not write an article about it if you’d rather try to keep it under wraps.”

“Why would you not?” Aya asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Because you don’t want me to?” Hatate explained, confused since she didn’t think it required elaboration.

...Though it clearly did require some elaboration since Aya just continued to stare at her with confusion.

“Seriously? I’m saying I wouldn’t write about a fellow tengu if I think it’d hurt them. Is that so hard to believe? You’d extend the same courtesy, right?”

“No.” Aya replied flatly. “Did you already forget I was willing to publish that article that stood to turn everything we tengu knew on our head? The whole reason I’m in this mess in the first place?”

“Oh, yeah, I guess that’s true… But at least in your own weird, incomprehensible way, you thought that was something that would benefit everyone in the end, even if daitengu disagreed.”

“Any tengu should be forward with what they believe in, I stand by that. ...So go ahead and write whatever you want about me or the Bunbunmaru. If we think something is newsworthy, it would be remiss of us reporters not to cover it. Even you aren’t that much of a fledgling not to know that.”

“Wow, you’re giving your blessing for me to talk trash about your rag on print?”

“Of course, if what you end up writing is nonsense, I’ll naturally counter it with journalism of my own. That’s just how the flow of information works. ...Assuming I’ve regained control of my own newspaper by then.”

“Ah, I’m sure you’ll work it all out one way or another.” Hatate stated confidently. “You care too much about tengu pride and stuff to just leave things be for too long. I’m sure you’ll still be butting heads with the big shots for a million years to come.”

“You think so? I suppose… that’s just in my nature.” Aya looked over Hatate with a wry smile. “Then compared to me, you look like you’re free of any ideas of what a tengu should be, and you just do whatever you want. I’m almost envious.”

“Huh, I just do whatever I want…?” Hatate initially wasn’t sure what to think of that, before suddenly frowning at Aya. “Waaaait, is that just your roundabout way of saying I’m impulsive and have no self-control? If that describes anyone, it’s you!”

“...Oh.” Aya blinked at Hatate for a moment, before suddenly bursting into a brief fit of laughter, which just confused Hatate. “Oh! That’s probably what she meant when she said that to me...”

“Uh, what?”

“It’s nothing, it’s nothing. Just thinking about something else.”

“I’m glad you feel better, then...?” Hatate murmured as she checked her camera once more out of habit. “...Oh! Hey, another hit! They’re delivering right now!”

“Oh,  _ great _ .” Aya said, flatly. “Where else are they going to make me fly to this time? Knowing my luck so far, they’ll drop those papers underground next-”

“Near the toad’s pond, on this mountain!” Hatate exclaimed.

“Near the-...” Aya processed what this information meant before she even finished talking. That was the closest one of these locations had been to where she was currently standing. There was just a chance that Aya could...

“Yeah! I wonder if they’re trying to-”

Hatate was about to comment on whether the backdoor folks were trying to send their papers for the giant toad in the pond to read too. ...She did not finish that sentence when a strong and loud gust pushed against her, produced from Aya taking off at full force.

“Wuh..!” Hatate nearly stumbled to the ground. She turned her head to see that the rock that Aya was leaning against had been destroyed by the suddenness of her take-off.

Aya rocketed towards the pond in question, flying at the fastest she had in a very, very long time. The air boomed loudly behind her and cut through the grassy scenery.

The pond was within sight within mere seconds. Near a dry base was a pile of newspapers, but above it was the unmistakable sight of those familiar metal doors.

Aya charged towards the door before she even noticed in the next fraction of a second that they were closing. Knowing they would disappear as soon as that happened, she reached out her arms and didn’t even bother bracing herself for impact.

Aya slammed into the surface of the door, but ignored the immediate pain as she grabbed hold of the door’s edges. What did slow down Aya’s momentum was the tremendous weight of the doors, which at first felt like they couldn’t be slowed down.

“No, you don’t!” Aya pushed with all her might, despite feeling like the door was capable of crushing her just by closing hard enough on her. She could just barely register that she was providing any resistance. “No! You! Don’t...!”

Slowly and excruciatingly, she could feel herself pushing forward.

* * *

Mai giggled as she tossed the last of her bag’s newspapers over her shoulder and into the door behind her, and turned her smile towards Satono now. “I think I want to work on that story as soon as possible. The subjects seem really interesting.”

“Funny, I was thinking the same thing!” Satono said, grinning alongside Mai as she swung the door behind them close.

The two walked away from the door… but then stopped a few seconds later when they both heard something strange. When they turned around again, they saw the door they had thought closed completely, was very slowly being pried open, and they heard what sounded like painful groaning from the other side.

“Uh, what’s going on?” Mai glanced to Satono, who was equally confused.

The door creaked with resistance it was never designed to experience, before finally bursting open. At the same time came Aya stumbling through from the other side.

Aya was hunched over and gasping, her face red from the exertion and her hands numb from the effort. She slowly lifted her head to meet Mai and Satono, who were dumbstruck at the sight of her.

“...Oh no, she forced her way in here again!” Mai finally said, holding her head in anguish as bad memories started to resurface. “Hey, it wasn’t because I forgot to close the door this time! You both saw it and have to vouch for me!”

“I doubt anyone could have expected this.” Satono turned to Aya, directing a pointed glare towards the tengu. “What are you doing here, Miss Tengu?”

“...Give me a second.” Aya said in between short breaths. “...Until I can feel my arms again.”

“Okay…?” Mai and Satono shared a confused look, and they simply stood there for several long moments as Aya composed herself.

Eventually, Aya stood up straight again and cleared her throat, shaking her wrists and stretching her legs behind her for good measure. “Okay. Okay! I’m good now.”

“What are you doing here, Miss Tengu?” Satono repeated, glaring once again.

“I should be the one asking you two that!” Aya exclaimed as she pointed at the dancers. “What do you think you’ve been doing, other than making a mockery of the Bunbunmaru!?”

“Oh, so you’ve noticed our handiwork.” Mai said with a soft smile. “I was curious what you would think.”

“You…” Aya had some choice words prepared, but she was distracted by something out of the corner of her eye. A door in the distance was open, and led into a room with carpeted floors and a decorated wall. She was quick to spot just a glimpse of the familiar-looking machine.

Aya flew over to the room in a flash, to both dancers’ annoyance. Satono even shouted out. “Hey! Don’t just act like you have the run of the place!”

Having found the printing press, Aya let out a deep breath. “After so much running around, I’ve finally found the source.”

“I’m sure it must be boggling your mind how we set it up here.” Mai said, proudly. “I bet you’re even a little impressed.”

“I sure am.” Aya stated flatly. Without a word of warning, she pulled out her hauchiwa fan and lifted it above her head. With one swing of her arm, she sent forth a controlled gale that knocked one of the printing press’ large gears flying right out of place and rolling towards the ground.

“...Well, that was rude.” Mai said, mildly disappointed. “Neither of us know how to fix that. Now we have to go get another!”

“You absolutely will not be doing that.” Aya said as she turned towards the dancers and floated towards them.

“Okay, okay, we suspected that you’d probably be a little unhappy about us doing your job.” Satono said with a wry smile.

“What in the world were you two even trying to do?” Aya asked angrily as she stopped in front of them. Her hand clenched her fan and her whole body was ready to spring into action at a second’s notice.

“Why, we were just taking after your advice.” Satono explained in a pleasant tone. “When you want to bring attention to a certain idea, you use newspapers to stir up interest, right? Since our little collaboration effort failed to go through, we thought we simply tried our own hand at it.”

“What? What kind of absurd ideas are you trying to bring attention to?”

“Oh, all kinds of ideas!” Mai replied, eager to answer. “We came up with all sorts of articles that we believe would draw readers to action. Only then can they truly be tested, to see if the inhabitants of Gensokyo can handle a little crisis or four.”

Satono nodded to that and spoke as well. “We also made sure to throw in plenty of articles about how to support and worship Master. Might as well advertise a little in a newspaper, right?”

“...I see. Oh, that’s truly laughable.” Aya dryly said. “What you two have been doing cannot even be considered journalism. You could never change minds or draw readers to action, even if you steal the name of a respected reporter and publication!”

“Well, we didn’t have one of those on hand so we just used yours. Sorry!” Mai said, unapologetically. “Though to be honest, as much as I’ve liked the idea, it feels like it takes far too long to actually accomplish anything with news.”

“I thought the same.” Satono said with amusement. “With how fickle Mai and I can be, we probably would have gotten bored of this before too long.”

“But not before utterly gutting my newspaper!” Aya exclaimed, finding the two’s nonchalant attitude to be far more frustrating than usual. “You have no idea the trouble you’ve caused me. I’ve had to chase your deliveries all over Gensokyo, trying to contain the damage! It’s bad enough that I can’t publish my work alongside my fellow tengu right now, but you two almost made it so that I couldn’t do it anywhere!”

“Wait, you mean you’ve been trying to stop people from reading our hard work? That’s just mean-spirited.” Mai said, pouting.

“I’ve been trying my hardest, for sure! Burned every copy of your mediocrity that I could find.”

“Now why would you do that?” Satono asked, almost appearing sincerely curious.

“As if I’d stand back and let anyone stamp on the Bunbunmaru! Attacking it is just as well as attacking my pride as a tengu!” Aya stated. As she spoke, she could feel the passion for her newspaper bursting out in defense of these two’s acts.

Mai and Satono didn’t seem particularly impressed though. In fact, after a second of staring with blank expressions, the two of them shared a smirk among themselves.

“I can’t help but find that funny, Miss Tengu.” Satono spoke to Aya with an impish tone. “You say you care so much about your paper, but you gave up pretty easily when those bigger tengu shut you down, didn’t you?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about-”

“Yeah, she did just throw up her hands when that happened, right?” Mai added, more openly mocking in her tone. “Oh, but we’re just being coy. We already know why that happened, seeing as how we know all there is about tengu.”

“And just what do you think you know!? Nothing! Less than nothing!” Aya flew closer towards the pair. Before she got too close however, Mai and Satono both flew off in different directions. They circled her, dividing her attention between the two of them.

“That your pecking order is absolute.” Mai casually explained. “If the bigger bird tells you that your ‘pride as a tengu’ is garbage, that’s just your new fact of life.”

“If anything, Miss Tengu, you should be grateful to us.” Satono said. “We took your newspaper’s name and are doing more than your hierarchy would allow with it. At least it’s out there and making waves regardless of who accepts it, as opposed to being stuck in place thanks to your superiors.”

“I’m not thanking either of you for anything.” Aya said through gritted teeth. “You have a lot of gall to be talking about ‘pecking orders’. Aren’t you two bound by your master? You can’t refuse orders yourself, can’t you?”

Satono burst into laughter at that, confusing Aya before replying. “Yes, we serve the secret god without question! Are you saying you are the same, that you’re a loyal servant among the tengu? I have to admit, you never gave that impression to me.”

“Me? A servant…?” Aya felt herself twitching at the thought. She’s been devoted to her people and respectful to the hierarchy, and sometimes that meant not getting her way, or even following orders she didn’t like.

...But even if her own superiors would think of her as only a tool to gather information, Aya’s pride as a tengu came from herself and she defended it by her own choice. Aya wanted, above all else, to write articles, because that’s what she enjoys doing.

Aya felt like expressing all this aloud, but she decided these two were not worth it, nor did she owe them any explanation.

“You’re finished, both of you. You’re going to stop stealing from the tengu.” Aya stated calmly and sternly, her eyes following the two dancers floating around her as best they could. “That includes everything from our equipment to our credits. If you want to make news, put your own name on it!”

“Oh, I think that would be fun, but there’s no point in doing that when you tengu control so much of the information.” Satono said with very fake anguish. “Anything we do in the world of newspapers is sure to get overshadowed by you all.”

“Exactly. Just like how your Bunbunmaru got shut out because they had better options.” Mai shook her head solemnly… before suddenly speaking cheerily again.“...That’s why I think we should do you a favour!”

“A favour?” Aya already didn’t like the sound of this.

“Other tengu newspapers are the cause of all our problems, aren’t they?” Mai began explaining. “I mean, it was other tengu who stamped on your pride too, right? In that case, I think we should continue following your example.”

“Ooh, good point, Mai!” Satono chuckled, excited at this new idea. “If everyone else’s newspapers just disappeared, then they might have to rely on you again, right?”

Aya looked between the two, and growing concern coloured her face. “...I’ve heard enough. If you two are talking about bringing harm to tengu or to our work, then I’m not going to let that happen!”

“Oh, of course you would say that.” Satono said as she floated to a stop behind a door, resting her arms on top of the frame. She stared at Aya like she was pitying the reporter, and spoke in a somber tone. “Just like us, you cannot help but be loyal, meaning you cannot help but to defend your flock even when they’ve wronged you. I feel sorry for you, which I never thought I’d say about a tengu.”

“...In that case, what I have to do is obvious.” Aya turned towards Satono with a dry smile. She was feeling more eager than ever to wipe the look off the other’s face. “I simply have to put a stop to you. No helping it, like you said!”

“Oh, are you sure?” Mai asked in a friendly tone, floating to a stop a short distance behind Aya. “We’ve gotten pretty good at this warding away tengu.”

Aya scoffed at that. “I think you said something like that the last time we fought. You didn’t forget how that ended, did you?”

Satono leaned just a bit forward from on top of the door, daring Aya with a look. “ _ Remind _ me.”

Aya had to give at least a little credit to their bravado, but that wouldn’t mean she was going to go easy. The both of them had caused her a lot of undue stress recently, and she was not feeling sporting.

Aya took off from her position in a flash, rushing at Satono with incredible speed and offering no chance to defend.

...At least, that was the intention, and would have been the case if Satono had not been expecting that. The door she was leaning on suddenly swung open.

“Wha-” Aya flew to a stop, but it was much too late as she felt a strong, magical force from the door pulling her towards it. She could already see that on the other side led to a completely different landscape.

Aya tried to fight the door’s suction, but she was slowly being pulled in. She glanced up to see Satono smiling down at her. “Of course, one of the things we’ve improved is how to ward tengu out of our own home.”

“Yeah! You should just take a break elsewhere while we work!” Mai said from behind, who Aya noticed a second too late. 

Mai drove her foot straight into Aya’s back, knocking the reporter off-balance and allowing the door’s suction to pull her in with no resistance. The door closed shut immediately after, leaving the two dancers in their domain.

Satono moved beside Mai, and smiled in delight. “Well then, shall we pay the tengu’s printing building another visit?”

“Let’s!” Mai agreed enthusiastically. “This time, we’ll leave them a gift in return for the big printer.”

Elsewhere, Aya had landed head-first into a large body of water after tumbling out of the door. She quickly swam to the surface and looked around. The door was no longer in sight, though she knew that hoping for it to still be around was asking for too much.

Glancing around the landscape at this time of night didn’t help her any in figuring out her location. From the most minimal of clues of the geography, she could only estimate that she was either in a large lake or in a river near a forest. Either way, she was a long, long way from Youkai Mountain.

Aya climbed out of the water, and as she was shivering, she realised exactly what Mai and Satono were intending to do. It was hard not to, considering she practically gave them the idea herself.

“Oh... Oh no... Oh shoot…” Aya muttered to herself as she tried to figure out which direction was the way back. “...They are going to burn down the press.”


	7. Chapter 7

The interior of the printing building was expansive in both width and height. The various printing machines and conveyor belts were built across multiple different levels, which could have been accessed from each other through stairs and ladders, but most employees were simply expected to fly to get where they needed to.

At the moment, the equipment was quiet and there were no tengu of any kind present, since nobody was feeling like working a night shift at the time. Usually when it was time to close up the building for the night, all the printing in progress was simply left in place so as to be picked up right where the workers left off the next day. This night was no exception, as a seemingly endless amount of partially-finished newspaper could be found either lining the conveyor belts, resting within the presses, or sitting in large stacks situated all around the room.

It was easy enough for Mai and Satono to make their way into the building, after having come out a door that led right outside and then helping themselves through a window despite it being barred from outside. The pair had already been inside once in order to procure one of the printing presses, but they took the chance yet again to take in the sight while they had the place to themselves.

“Seriously, this place is bigger than any temple I’ve seen.” Mai commented as she sat on top of a high stack of newspapers, looking upwards to the ceiling high above. “Except instead of worshiping gods, it’s a tower where only information is sacred!”

“I was thinking the same.” Satono said as she undid the bundles that held newspapers togethers, and began haphazardly tossing them all across the area. “It makes me wonder then… If the tengu were to suddenly lose their ‘sacred tower’, would their reaction be similar to humans who have lost faith and fall into despair?”

“I almost want to see that. If they can’t control the flow of information… will all the tengu just go visit temples instead?!” Mai said, unable to help but laugh at her own comment.

“That’s such a gross image! I don’t like this analogy anymore!” Satono said, laughing as well as she threw up a few more papers in the air that dropped along the floor in a complete mess.

While the pair were making small-talk during the last few minutes, they had also been busy not only spreading a mess of papers across the area as much as possible, but also preparing batches of dry straw and grass set up across every level, making displays that might have looked like effigies of worship despite their purpose to be set on fire in mere moments.

Mai stood up and moved to the center of the floor where Satono was. From there, each of them prepared a torch, helping to light the other’s at the same time.

“You know, I think we really deviated from our original ‘sit back and observe’ plan at some point.” Satono commented, finding the whole thing rather amusing to think back on.

“Maybe. But if the inhabitants of this land can’t handle a little disaster now and then, then that just means they fail Master’s evaluation!” Mai declared with a grin.

“Very true. Let’s dedicate this blazing performance to Master while we’re at it.” Satono nodded and took Mai’s free hand in her’s.

The two shared in a twirl before setting a particularly large heap of papers on the ground ablaze. They were then quick to float high in the sky, each wearing an eager smile as the fire began to slowly but surely spread…

...That is, until a small but powerful whirlwind burst forth from beneath the fire, instantly dissipating it and blowing apart the heap of kindle where it used to be.

“Huh...?” Mai and Satono were confused for only a moment before they looked towards the entrance of the room. Standing there was Aya, clothes still soaked, and glaring sharply at them from below.

“You actually made it.” Satono said, blinking in surprise.

Aya addressed them in a serious voice. “You two must really be mad if you thought I would just leave you be. You should have expected to see me again.” 

“We both did, but I didn’t think we’d see you, how long has it been, ten minutes since the last time?”

“Expect nothing less from the fastest in Gensokyo.” Aya proudly stated. She thought she likely lost a few feathers from the speeds she reached just now, but the situation warranted it. “I even had time to bring some company.”

“Ah! Hold on...!” From behind Aya, came another voice entering the room. Hatate came up beside Aya, and stared up at the dancers with cautious excitement. “Oh my gosh, they’re really here! I was so worried you made me break in here with you for no reason.”

“I wouldn’t have forced myself in here for no reason! ...But I am also really glad I wasn’t wrong.” Aya allowed a small sigh of relief, since there wouldn’t have been any other explanation to her breaking the lock in the front entrance.

“So you brought a friend too?” Mai commented, looking down at the two tengu, her tone having grown somewhat annoyed. “I feel like this just got a lot more troublesome.”

“It definitely has, and I can’t fathom why you would make it so, Miss Tengu.” Satono said, speaking to Aya as if she were confused. “You told us once that you only cared about what made for a sensational story. You’re not the slightest bit curious about what the fallout of everything here burning would be?”

“You could not be further from the truth.” Aya stepped forward, and spoke to the dancers without hesitation. “I am here to fight for the sake of the tengu, and I’m always proud to do so! As for whether this will be a sensational story, I’ll trust the fledgling over there to cover it.”

“Wow, don’t I feel honoured?” Hatate said dryly. “Don’t worry, I’ll cover whatever happens here better than you ever could. So you focus on stopping those two.”

“Understood! ...Wait, hold on, that’s not quite-” Aya started to say, but Hatate then flew upwards.

“Listen up, all of you!” Hatate enthusiastically called out to Aya and the dancers. “You all have some dramatic reasons to be here but are now at odds, right? Then fight it out, and I’ll make sure to capture everything about you, be it your passion or your fury or whatever!”

Mai in particular seemed delighted about this. “How quaint! A tengu is going to report about us burning down this sacred tengu structure.”

Hatate flipped open her camera. “I don’t know if ‘sacred’ is the right word-”

“We’ll be sure to put on a splendid performance, then!” Satono declared, before glancing towards Aya. “Right after we ward off this other tengu here.”

“Wait wait wait.” Aya turned to Hatate. “I thought we were going to do two-on-two? I dramatically unveiled you as my backup and everything, like an ace up my sleeve, so- Woah!”

Aya narrowly dodged an incoming attack by flying upwards. Satono wasted no time going on the offensive. “Your choices now are to either be repelled, or choke on ginger...!”

Before Aya could respond, Mai circled to her other side and unleashed her own flurry of projectiles. “Falling those, you can go mad from the frustration of it all…!”

Aya swerved in the air, managing to put some distance from both dancers before heading higher into the air. Not only was she being attacked on two fronts, but her fellow reporter was safely taking photos afar, which Aya had to admit was a tactic she respected.

As frustrated as she wanted to be, and still was, Aya couldn’t help but smile in this situation.

“Ayayaya... I just cannot have anything easy lately.” She took a moment to stretch her arms above her head. “...Fine by me! Hatate, you better capture my image in all of my splendor!”

Aya flew right into the thick of the action, and Mai and Satono went after her, all three of them dancing around the air in a chaotic whirl of violence.

Hatate was also speeding through the air with her camera at the ready, capturing all sorts of striking images. At the same time, she was working in her mind about how the inevitable article will be structured, and how the imagery in front of her will relate to the words she would write. It felt important to make sure this scoop was exceptionally well-covered.

After all, the subject of the scene was Aya Shameimaru, crow tengu of the gale and model reporter in the ways that mattered most, fighting for the sake of all tengu against a secret god’s servants. She flew through the air with graceful movements as she and her opponents chased one another. A plethora of projectiles from three sources filled the room, and all the papers that were in their paths were blown all over the place from all the wind and chaos that was stirred up.

Even with newspapers flying everywhere, and despite the speedy movements of all participants, Hatate had no trouble following, even coming close to being in the line of fire herself. Being so close to the danger was how one brought out the most impressive imagery, such as Mai and Satono’s synchronised performance unleashing a storm of danger in all directions, or Aya dodging and countering it all with a smile on her face. 

At some point, Aya started moving faster than anyone’s eyes could keep track of, but Hatate’s camera managed still to capture her fellow crow tengu riding the gales she produced as if the domain belonged to her, battering the overwhelmed dancers with winds from multiple directions.

“ _ Aya’s really going all out against these two. _ ” Hatate thought as she smirked to herself. “ _ When it comes to your tengu pride, you always get more serious than you let on. You’re a traditional tengu through and through, aren’t you? Well, that can be a good point sometimes…  _ -Woah!”

Hatate quickly dived out of the way, avoiding the two dancers that were sent flying from a decisive attack. Satono slammed back-first into a window, and Mai slammed into her in turn. Many random newspapers were still floating and falling all through the air around them.

“Aargh, Mai, you’re crushing me…” Satono groaned, fairly certain she could feel glass breaking behind her.

“Sorry! I’m gonna give that tengu one for- ...Ah.” Mai trailed off when she realised Aya was already in their sight. Or rather, the two of them were in her sights.

“Here’s the clincher!” Aya declared, and gave one mighty swing forward with her fan. In an instance, a massive cyclone was produced and sent straight towards her pair of targets, who could not have hoped to move out of the way in time.

The cyclone’s furious force completely broke through the window and even parts of the wall around it. The dancers were blown right out of the building, and they landed outside along with a heap of newspapers.

After a few seconds of only seeing stars, Mai, who was flat on her back, blinked and focused until she was seeing the actual stars in the night sky, realising they were now outside. “Did we underestimate her again...? Argh, I’m annoyed! Let’s get back in there, Satono!”

“Um, actually! I think we have other things to worry about.” Satono said as she sat up, glancing around their surroundings.

The pair had landed in the middle of a small crowd of tengu who were going about their nightlife, who were all staring at them with varying levels of confusion and apprehension. More worrying than just that though, were the squad of white wolf tengu looming over them.

“Woah!” One of the wolf tengu exclaimed upon spotting the odd pair. “You were right, Captain! They really are here!”

It took some time to convince her whole squad to come to the printing building at this time of night, especially since Momiji herself wasn’t entirely certain when the only reason she had was a soaked Aya arriving at her home and clamouring for her to hurry. However, it looked like they had arrived just on time.

Momiji stepped forward, staring down at the dancers with her weapons in hand. “I took a chance on something I heard from the wind, and it’s a good thing I did.”

“Um…” Satono chuckled nervously at the rather intense stares that were coming her and Mai’s way. “So did you come because you were interested in an encore, or…”

“Tear them apart.” Momiji said bluntly, and the rest of her squad moved forward.

“Uh oh.” Satono and Mai both exclaimed, before immediately turning tail, kicking up newspapers as they fled from the angry pack of wolves baring fangs and swinging swords.

Aya and Hatate peeked out from the destroyed window just in time to see Mai and Satono frantically fleeing down the streets with not just the wolf tengu close behind them, but plenty of other tengu who were too curious not to follow.

“So…” Hatate spoke as they watched everyone disappear into the distance. “I’m pretty sure a commotion like that is going to have everyone talking, regardless of what any decree might have suggested. You think the white wolves will catch’em?”

“I don’t know. Their plans have gone up in flames either way, though.” Aya said, weary but relieved.

Aya’s heart felt lighter now. Perhaps part of the reason was having stopped the dancer’s harmful ‘performance’, or because she got the chance to let loose in the earlier fight. More likely than either of those, was that she was simply feeling optimistic again.

* * *

After witnessing how their very own printing presses came under threat, every tengu reporter felt compelled and obligated to comment about it in their papers, whether it was speculation about the perpetrators, commentary on tengu security, or something in between. Whatever opinions any of these reporters had though, they all knew they would be defaulting to Hatate Himekaidou’s take, seeing as how she witnessed all the happenings up close, and tengu everywhere were eagerly awaiting for an extra from Kakashi Spirit News to disclose the undisputed facts. Hatate simply assured everyone that it was coming, just that a properly-done article needed time to be refined.

As for the perpetrators in question, Mai and Satono had managed to escape from their pursuers the previous night, although not without taking a hefty amount of scratches and bites. Through combined suggestions from both Momiji and Aya, several new magical seals were placed around the area to ideally prevent or at least reduce the chances of any tricksters opening their strange doors wherever they please.

It might have worked already, since Aya heard that the missing printing press was found sitting at the base of the mountain instead of specifically within the tengu’s territory. Aya assumed that those two were quick to dump the machine since they didn’t know how to fix it and it was taking up space.

Aya heard all this at the station where she was once again recounting the gist of the situation for the record. It only took about thirty minutes altogether, and they had even finished questioning Hatate by then. Even after it was finished though, Aya decided to stick around the station. She felt that this event in particular warranted her to make sure no details were left up to misconstrued. ...However, the other tengu present insisted that she simply leave them to their business.

“Alright, alright, I can take a hint.” Aya grumbled as she was shooed out of another room. The other tengu had given her about ten different ‘hints’, but she decided to finally show some mercy on them by leaving them alone after spending most of the morning micro-managing them.

As she was heading towards the station’s exit, she spotted a familiar figure heading in her direction. She first noticed when other tengu who were passed by the figure were quick to give respectful bows and greetings. Aya settled for simply standing in place, an impassive expression and neutral stature as she was approached by the daitengu.

“Good morning, Shameimaru.” The daitengu in ornate robes and blue mask addressed Aya like it was any other day. “It seems you couldn’t help but have gotten mixed with trouble.”

“This time it feels trouble stumbled onto me, rather than the other way around. If you’re here to find out what happened, I’m sure the others in this station can relay the details. I spent a lot of time making sure they didn’t get any details wrong.”

“Ever dedicated.” The daitengu was about to leave at that, as Aya nodded and started to walk past, before suddenly addressing her again. “One moment, Shameimaru.”

Aya stopped and turned around, unsure what to expect.

“Before, we had instructed all tengu to simply ignore those servants of the sage. However, after they appeared to cause a commotion for a second time, caught in the middle of undermining our printing press no less, it became impossible to ignore their presence.”

“If it helps, I don’t think anybody is going to think your instructions were wrong. You can just say it was a suggestion, and they’ll probably just chalk it up to unforeseen circumstances.” Aya said, not really expecting anyone, especially the daitengu, to reconsider their priorities after today.

“What happened last night was unforeseen, yes, but that’s not my point.” The daitengu explained, and Aya managed not to roll her eyes at the expected response. We were going to inform you about this later, but I may as well relay it now. We decided it would now be pointless to ask you to retract your latest article, and we have further informed the yamabushi that you were never in the wrong.”

“Oh. I see.” Aya hadn’t thought about it until that moment, but foiling the dancer’s plans the way she did the previous night had actually gone and proven the point of her extra in a roundabout way. “Thank you for letting me know. So then…”

“You may simply forget about the stipulation we gave you, and resume your business as usual.”

“...I’ll do just that, then. Thank you.” Aya said in an impassive tone. Just as she was wondering if that was all there was, the daitengu continued.

“I know you disagreed with our decision to begin with, but I do hope that you, of all people, understand the purpose behind our actions. Everything we do is only ever for the sake of all tengu.”

“I do understand, and I’ve never had a doubt about that.” Aya responded. As she spoke, she took on a lighter tone and a small smile as she brought a hand to her chest. “In that same vein, I hope you all understand that I only ever act as I believe a proper tengu should.”

“...Well then, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, that you can expect others to have a different idea of what a proper tengu is.”

“I am sure there will be plenty of conversations about it between all of us to come. Until then, good day.” Aya gave a sincere bow, and then left for the exit.

Aya stepped out of the building. Just as she was wondering how best to spend the rest of her day, she spotted Hatate coming up the nearby hill.

“I’ve been waiting for you!” Hatate waved towards Aya and stopped in front of her. “Let me guess, they kept you from leaving just to ask the same few questions like ten times, right?”

“...Yes, that is what happened.” Had Aya known Hatate was waiting outside, she might not have spent so much time inside the station. “I thought you would have headed straight home to work on your latest scoop.”

“That’s the reason why I was waiting for you. Seeing as how you’re a central subject in the story, I thought it would only be fitting to ask you for an interview, so as to get the full rundown on your thoughts and feelings.”

“Is that right?” Aya pretended to think about it for a moment. “It definitely feels a little surreal to be the subject of an article instead of the one writing it…”

“Oh, one thing though. It’s only fair of me to warn you before you agree, I will be brutally honest with how my newspaper presents the people in it. You will be no exception.” Hatate said, though she also sounded proud about that fact. “Only agree as long as you’re prepared for that!”

Aya just chuckled at the warning. “I wouldn’t want you to be anything but pure and honest! I happily agree to an interview, so give me your all!”

* * *

Season 134 Shimotsuki Extra

**Chaos Erupts At The Press!**

_ A Clash Of Forceful But Careless Minds... _

Late at night on the ○ the ○th, a violent confrontation took place within Center District’s very own printing building. Two agents from the Land of the Backdoor, Mai Teireida (human?) and Satono Nishida (human?), who had previously appeared in front of the tengu on ○ the ○th, infiltrated the building with the intent of destroying the supplies and archives within. Supposedly, their reasoning for such actions was to throw the tengu’s network into disarray for the purpose of ‘testing’ their capabilities to adapt.

Fortunately, this disastrous plan never came to fruition since soon after the arrival of the pair, came Aya Shameimaru (crow tengu). I arrived shortly after alongside her to cover the scene.

A disagreement naturally occurred, which very quickly broke out into a physical confrontation between the three parties. All participants in the brawl went all out, taking no heed of their surroundings as their battle disrupted many of the supplies and equipment. The yamabushi tengu in charge estimate that it will take them a full week of work to repair and re-organise the mess that was left behind.

At the end of this fight, a window was destroyed along with its surrounding concrete when the secret god’s servants were blown out of the building by the crow tengu, where they were then pursued by a white wolf tengu squad on patrol. All photos on page 3 cover the extent of the damage caused during this incident. On the morning directly after, I interviewed Aya Shameimaru.

“From when I flew over there and to the end of our skirmish, you could say I was essentially acting on instinct the whole time! Yes, yes, with the fate of the sacred printing press, I wasted no time in expelling those intruders in a flash. When it comes to defending our network of information, this tengu of the gale will always be up to the challenge!”

Between giving herself a self-aggrandising title and her lack of solemnity, she appears to treat the incident as a fun anecdote rather than the serious threat she describes it as. Her carefree attitude in this situation is not too surprising considering that in the following excerpts, she explains how it was likely that this whole matter came to be due to her own indiscretion.

“Why did those two suddenly decide to commit arson of all things? I suppose in the back of their heads, they were always considering some kind of large-scale action that the tengu couldn’t ignore, another grand ‘performance’ as they would describe it. I mean I might have mentioned a thing or two about ‘burning garbage’ or the like to them. Oh, but I’m certain, completely certain, they were dead-set on causing mayhem regardless.”

Such emphasis only gives the impression of an uncertain statement from her, making her culpability all the more obvious. Regardless of that, it was Aya Shameimaru who first encountered these beings from the Land of the Backdoor, so her opinion on their intentions are currently the most reliable source despite her careless lack of foresight regarding the threat they held. The next page’s excerpts will follow results of the patrolling squad’s pursuit of the perpetrators, and advice on how you can assist.

(Hatate Himekaidou)

* * *

“Hmm. I don’t know how I feel about this.” Mai looked over the copy of Kakashi Spirit News as she laid on the couch. “It is a little funny, seeing that tengu get called a dummy, but it’s not quite the sensational bit of news I was hoping for.”

“Personally, I don’t care much either way.” Satono said indifferently, sitting by a nearby table. She was currently busy replacing the bandages along her arm and shoulder. “I think I’m done caring about what tengu are writing about. My final conclusion from our observations is that making newspapers is too troublesome, and I’m not in a rush to take their place.”

“I can agree with that.” Mai said, putting down the paper and slowly standing up, something she had to take her time with due to the still-healing wound on her back. She was instantly chipper again, despite having to wobble over to Satono with her bandaged leg. “Ow. Ow. Ow. …Anyway, reporting news is a totally worthless profession, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely worthless!” Satono nodded. “...But it was fun when we were putting our own spin on it, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, naturally. We’re experts at combining work and leisure, aren’t we?”

“I defer to your expertise on that. You’re such an expert at putting off work, after all.” Satono said with a giggle, and Mai took the comment as a compliment, giggling alongside her. “Let’s find a new way to make observing youkai more interesting, as soon as possible.”

“I couldn’t agree more! We can take more photos to commemorate those occasions too, right?”

“Sadly, no, I lost that camera. I think I dropped during that scuffle.” Satono explained, but then quickly laughed it off. “Oh, but who needs pictures as reminders! I could never forget any day spent with you, Mai.”

“Aw, I feel the same.” Mai leaned in for a big hug with Satono… which she immediately regretted thanks to the sharp pain that shot through her back. “Ow! Ow, ow, ow...!”

Satono only fared slightly better, hissing quietly as her shoulders ached under Mai’s weight. She gently pulled Mai off her, and spoke in a strained voice. “...A-actually, nevermind what I said about ‘as soon as possible’. How about we just take it easy right now, and indefinitely?”

“I couldn’t agree more…” Mai said weakly, before wobbling back to the couch.

* * *

Aya examined the pinboard in her house. As always, it was covered in a mess of miscellaneous notes and photos with headline potential for Aya to consider. The contents were replaced at an irregular rate, but she had one new addition at the moment. Now pinned to the one of the corners was a photograph, salvaged from the camera Aya picked after her confrontation with the dancers. 

It was a self-portrait of Mai and Satono, the latter holding the camera. If she wanted to, she could criticise a lot about the picture, like how the angle was awkward, or how there was a lot of wasted space and it was only due to their faces being so close to each other that they were both visible in the picture. Regardless of all that, the strange lighting found in their bizarre domain of backdoors, along with their bright smiles made for a striking-enough photo.

“Nowhere near good enough to be considered a Bunbunmaru-quality picture, but I will give points for passion.” Aya mused aloud at the photo. Now that all was said and done, she could look back on all the trouble caused by them and even laugh about the extent of it all. Not that she would ever want to relive any of it, though.

Aya had no way of knowing if she would have a chance or reason to write another article about those two, but should they ever make another newsworthy commotion, she was confident in being the first to cover that scoop, just as she was confident that she would continue discovering and reporting on all sorts of truths for a long time to come.

...Although she wasn’t in a rush to go out and get to work any time soon. She glanced towards the copy of the latest extra from Kakashi Spirit News lying on her desk, and grimaced.

“...I really wish she could have been less honest.” Aya tried to laugh to herself about it, but Hatate’s harsh article meant every tengu was going to give her strange looks. It was enough to make even someone like the pure and honest Shameimaru self-conscious.

Aya’s career as a reporter still had a bright future ahead of it, but her break from society was going to last a little bit longer after all...


End file.
